


you make my heart burst (the appendix wasn't your fault)

by phonecallfromgod



Category: American Vandal (TV)
Genre: Appendicitis, Established Relationship, Illadvised Teen Shenanigans, Implied/Referenced Sex, Medical Procedures, Multi, Post-Season 2, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-27 11:25:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17161127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phonecallfromgod/pseuds/phonecallfromgod
Summary: Sam knows about Peter's uncanny ability to bond with their documentary subjects, but he didn't really get how deep those bonds go until Peter ends up in the hospital.Or;Peter's sick, Sam's annoyed, and the gang's all here.





	you make my heart burst (the appendix wasn't your fault)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Meg youshallnotfinditso for graciously letting me borrow Colin Ecklund, and there are many ideas in this fic that would not exist without you <3 Thank you for everything.

Now that he’s a fully fledged Miniwaka counsellor, Sam gets to have an entire week off during the summer. Which is pretty freaking sweet compared to last year, where as a counsellor in training he’d basically had no off-days that weren’t changeover weekends. 

What is a little less sweet is that he ends up having to spend basically all of it holed up in an editing suite in the Netflix Headquarters in Los Gatos doing post-production stuff for Vandal. But at least that means he gets to spend the whole week with Peter, and Netflix puts them up in a super nice hotel room, so Sam feels like he can’t complain too much. Even if he’s not even getting an editing credit for this, since really he’s just coming in at the end to help finalize the cut that Peter’s been working on for the last month. 

Credit or not, the supervising editor from Netflix looks at Sam like a goddamn magician when in the first ten minutes he manages to pinpoint exactly what has been driving Peter crazy about the intro that he’d failed to articulate for well over a week.

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” Sam says with a shrug. “That boyfriend intuition.” 

And it’s true. And even if they weren’t dating, after three years doing the Morning Show, two seasons of Vandal, and half a dozen other side projects, Sam deciphering Peter’s half-finished trains of thought and frustrated hand gestures is just second nature. 

That’s the majority of the week, honestly, Sam leaning over Peter’s shoulder, spotting problems before Peter even articulates them. Which Peter seems to find in equal measure extremely helpful and extremely annoying. 

“I can’t help it that I’m just naturally brilliant,” Sam jokes, sitting on the edge of the bathtub in their suite while Peter plays with his hair. On the one hand Sam can acknowledge, objectively, that Peter’s hair game has really stepped up since he’s discovered pomade, but after watching a few clips from season one earlier, he can’t help but miss Peter’s adorably uncool sophomore haircut. 

“But I mean,” Sam continues, “you’ve already done like, ninety-five percent of the work. It’s not that hard to find, y’know, problems when you have the structure in place. I’m just nitpicking really.” 

“And that,” Peter says, turning on his heel, “is why you don’t get an editing credit.” 

Sam sticks his tongue out at him in the mirror, flicking the keys for the rental car in his hand impatiently as Peter leaves his hair and starts fussing with his shirt. 

“Does this look stupid? I feel like it’s not dressy enough.” 

“Pete, it’s Angie. And she literally just had a baby, you think she’s going to care about what you’re wearing? She’s literally seen you in pajamas.” 

Which was true. As one half of their entire crew for the St. Bernadine’s shoot, Angie had seen both of them in a whole host of states. Including a few compromising positions that they’re never going to talk about or acknowledge ever. 

But despite the fact that Angie has that highly sensitive knowledge, Sam is still excited to see her for the first time in almost six months. Especially because the baby bump she’d been sporting during the shoot, lovingly dubbed by all of them as Baby Vandal, is now a very tiny person.

Their sound guy, and the entire other half of their crew, Michael, is currently off in Poland or the Czech Republic or something working on some investigative documentary that had involved an NDA, so neither Peter nor Sam know what exactly it’s about. But Michael had sent them a super nice, if vague, email the other week so at least they know he isn’t like, hiding out from the Polish mob or anything. 

One shirt change and a few more mirror hair fluffs by both of them later they’re off to Angie’s place in the almost stressfully nice rental car Netflix had hooked Peter up with. That always fazed Sam personally, when stuff was a little bit _too_ nice. It was stressful. Like the Lyman’s guest house was already stupid nice, but whenever Sam went into the main house to see Chloe or use the kitchen, he always felt like he couldn’t sit anywhere or touch anything. Peter didn’t seem to have that problem at all, which Sam mostly chalked up to his mom being one of Oceanside’s top realtors and his own house being kept in more or less showhome condition all the time. 

Angie’s house, thankfully, is warm and inviting and eclectic and nice without being scary nice, much like Angie herself, who comes running out onto the driveway in her bare feet and mom jeans when they pull up, arms already thrown open to embrace them before ushering them inside. 

“Sooo, how’s editing going?” Angie says, when they’re all settled on the leather sectional which takes up about eighty percent of the living room, plates of hummus and pita with little dipping wells of olive oil deposited by Angie’s husband Dawood before he disappears back to the kitchen. 

“It’s good,” Peter says, covering his mouth with the back of his hand while he swallows. “We got almost everything mapped out over the last few weeks and Sam’s been really helpful. I really trust his insights” 

“See that’s not what you said when I told you we have to call episode two, ‘number two’,” Sam says pointing with a piece of bell pepper. 

Peter rolls his eyes and Angie shakes her head, re-adjusting her daughter, Lina, who is the most adorable and wiggly four-month-old baby that Sam has ever seen in his life. 

“Look, we did all dick joke titles for last season, we need to be consistent with our puns.” 

“I don’t know,” Angie says thoughtfully. “I feel like dick jokes are funnier than poop jokes.”

“No they’re not,” Sam and Peter say in near-unison, startling a laugh out of Angie. 

“Alright, okay, fair. I’m probably biased. Your life becomes so poop-oriented with a baby it just stops being funny, honestly,” Angie says with a shrug. 

“Hey, can someone give me a hand?” Dawood calls from the kitchen, and Angie goes to stand but Sam waves a hand at her. 

“I got it, I got it,” Sam says, standing and going into the kitchen to help, which turns out to mostly just involve holding a platter which he is excellent at if he does say so himself. 

“Hey so Dawood said everything’s going to be ready in— ” Sam says, and then halts abruptly in the threshold of the living room as he catches sight of Peter holding Lina while Angie shows him something on a tablet. 

He’d never really gotten the whole ‘hot guy with a baby’ thing, but something about Peter holding Lina, shifting her onto his hip and letting her grab onto the edge of his flannel with her chubby little baby hands makes him feel like his heart might just split at the seams.

“You okay?” Peter says, Lina still in his arms. 

“Yeah, why?” Sam asks. 

Peter shrugs. “You just had this, I dunno, this look on your face.” 

“Hahaha, nah I’m good,” Sam fucking lies like a lying liar. 

Luckily he’s saved from looking like too much of a lovestruck idiot because Angie ends up putting Lina down for bed almost immediately after that so they can have, quote, ‘grown up dinner at a regular time.’ Which does end up being both very fun and very delicious, Peter’s leg crossed over Sam’s under the table, even though it’s pretty clear that Dawood and Angie are both a little starved for adult-ish company. 

“God, I’ve got like, Baby Vandal 2.0 going on over here,” Sam complains as he adjusts his seatbelt on the drive back to the hotel. 

“I guess a swim is out of the question then?” Peter says. 

“Only if you want to save me when I sink to the bottom,” Sam whines. “How are you not dying?” 

“I wasn’t really that hungry,” Peter says with a shrug, as they pull into the hotel parking lot. “It was super good though.” 

“Well good for you,” Sam snarks, poking Peter in the shoulder. 

“No one was making you eat that much.” 

“You haven’t been living off of Miniwaka food all summer. I’ve gotta get the good shit when I can. By Sunday I’m going to be back to powdered eggs and scones you could honestly kill someone with.” 

“Like, via food poisoning?” 

“No, like they’re super stale and hard and you could just stone someone to death with them. Or scone them to death I guess.” 

“Oh, booo,” Peter says pulling into the parking lot as Sam cackles. 

“That was funny! C’mon, that was funny.” 

“Don’t quit your day job, buddy,” Peter says, unbuckling his seatbelt, but then turning 

back towards Sam and kissing him over the gearshift, and then relenting. “It was kind of funny.” 

“Fuck yeah it was,” Sam says, and he’s floating on that high enough to mostly ignore his gastrointestinal woes until they get back to their suite and he flops facedown onto the duvet on the closest bed. 

“Fuuuuck me, I’m never eating again,” Sam says and Peter pats his calf sympathetically on his way over to the other bed where he’d left his laptop. Sam’s not entirely sure _why_ Netflix felt the need to give them a room with two beds, especially because 1) it’s not like them being a couple is a secret even if they try to be pretty professional about it and 2) both of the beds are king sized so they could totally sleep without touching in a single bed if they really wanted to. 

Peter settles on the other side of the bed and rubs Sam’s back. “You sure you don’t wanna go for a swim tonight?” 

Sam sighs, turning over onto his side. “Look, my lifeguard training isn’t helpful if I’m the one who needs saving.” 

“Touche,” Peter says, and he doesn’t sound mad or anything, but Sam can hear that slight hint of disappointment. 

“We could go in the morning?” He offers, sitting up a bit more, adjusting his stack of pillows. “I love hotel pools, they make me think of NHD Nationals. Or just like, hotels in general I guess.” 

Peter gets a small private smile from that, and Sam scoots up further so he can plant a kiss on the not particularly romantic, but easily accessible, plaid flannel covered shoulder in front of him. They both get kind of sentimental about NHD Nationals, and just National History Day in general, since that was really the beginning of everything for them. 

Like Sam had _known_ Peter before then since they’d been at the same middle school for about a year and a half before their history teacher, Miss Lorris, had suggested that they team up for a National History Day project since they’d both wanted to do something on the Pony Express. And ever since then they’ve been pretty much inseparable. 

To this day Sam considers the film they made to be the best one they’ve done, especially considering they made it to Nationals off of mostly clips of Sam in different costumes in front of a makeshift green screen in Peter’s garage.

“Do you remember,” Sam says, running a hand up Peter’s shoulder, “when they taped us into our rooms, but we were on the first floor so we snuck out the patio door just because we could? And all we did was go buy like airheads and those, like, milkshake drinks in the plastic bottles at 7Eleven?” 

“We thought we were such badasses,” Peter grins, softening in the warm glow of nostalgia. 

“We were!” Sam protests. “All those middle school girls could definitely tell what a cool badass you were and that’s why so many of them asked you to the dance.” 

“Oh Jesus,” Peter says, and presses his face into the pillow, embarrassed. 

“What was that one girl’s name? The really pushy one with the braces?” 

“Kacie Gooden.” 

“Kacie Good- _en_!” Sam echoes. “Oh Kacie. I wonder what she’s up to now.” 

“Actually we’re still facebook friends, she’s going to UChicago for, I think like, sociology or something?” 

Sam whistles. “Good for her. I’m guessing she got over the crushing blow of your disinterest?” 

“We can only hope,” Peter says, curling towards Sam like the other half of a pair of parentheses. 

“So we can go swimming in the morning?” Sam asks again, and Peter nods, placated by a well-placed hit of affection and nostalgia. 

“Yeah, I’m gonna go change then,” Peter says, heaving himself up with a groan, and by the time he comes back from the bathroom Sam’s feeling less puke-y and more just comfortably full, playing Little Alchemy on his phone when Peter halts in front of the mirror, prodding at his side gently. He’s just wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants and no shirt, and Sam takes the opportunity to admire the view for a long few seconds.

“What’s up?” 

Peter frowns, back still towards Sam as he continues gently poking his side, “I don’t know. I’ve been having this pain in my side. I thought maybe I’d bumped into something and just bruised, but I don’t have a bruise?” 

Sam puts his phone down and sits up. “Let me see?” He says, gesturing for Peter to come close. Sam puts a gentle hand on his hip and prods, Peter wincing slightly. “Yeah, I don’t see a bruise. Though you are like, freakishly hard to get to bruise anyways. I’ve given you what, like maybe two and a half successful hickeys?” 

Peter huffs, kneeling onto the bed. “Hey I’m not complaining,” Sam continues, “It’s the journey not the destination.” 

“Oh my god,” Peter says, and cuts him off with a kiss, though Sam puts the kibosh on that going much further when the thought of Peter being on top of him is more nauseau-inducing than sexy. Which is kind of a bummer since they only have one more day together until they fly back home, Peter spending a well-deserved week off before coming back for more edits and other post-production meetings, Sam back to Miniwaka just in time for the start of the Color War. 

Not that they haven’t taken advantage of this week together in a private suite with not one, but two king-sized beds. Not Kevin McClain condom-buying levels of advantageousness, but still, it’s been nice. Especially with the daunting reality of both of them starting at different colleges in September. 

Still, even that looming emotional rollercoaster doesn’t put too much of a damper on having a huge rainfall shower or Sam’s determination to make up to Peter for last night. Which Peter seems to appreciate immensely, even if he lets out a little yelp when Sam’s hand presses too hard on his abdomen. 

“You know,” Sam says, a little while later, hair still damp as he eats a pack of frozen pop tarts at the little breakfast nook, “the internet says it could be appendicitis if it’s on your right side.”

Peter scoffs, “The internet says that headaches are brain tumours.” 

“Fair,” Sam says, breaking off and handing half of his second pop tart to Peter before he even has to ask, “But maybe you should, like, go to the doctor?” 

“Yeah I’ll go to a clinic on Monday when I’m home if it’s still bugging me,” Peter says, digging around in the fridge for his expensive bottles of cold brew coffee and cracking the top on one. “I still kinda just think it’s from slamming into one of those stupid standing desks.” 

“Yeah god, why is Netflix so obsessed with those. Why can’t it just be an office full of bean bag chairs like they have at Google?” Sam says, and then doesn’t think about it again for the rest of the day. They don’t end up going for a swim until pretty late in the afternoon, their morning mostly filled with wandering around boutiques downtown, Peter looking for a gift for his mom’s birthday. When they finally make it to the pool there’s some family with a bunch of kids so they end up chilling in the hot tub for a while, still going back and forth on that opening of episode two (Sam thinks the first cut is a better entry point to Kevin for the audience, Peter is worried about the framing possibly coming off as trying to mislead the audience about Kevin being incapable). 

They end up not coming to a resolution, because mid-argument the family vacates the pool and the two of them are scrambling like a goddamn starting pistol went off, jumping into the deep end of the pool like they’re twelve again. Sam emerges a good ten feet away from Peter, who grins at him, eyes crinkling into a squint as Sam gets closer thanks to his farsightedness. 

“Hey,” Peter says, treading water. 

“Hey,” Sam says, and he legitimately thinks Peter is angling for a kiss, but that’s probably what Peter wanted him to think, shoving him underwater by the shoulders before laughing and setting off in the other direction. Sam coming up spluttering and immediately after him, catching Peter around the ankle. 

Sam falls asleep as soon as they get back to their hotel room, full-body tired and waterlogged, not even bothering to get under the covers after he changes out of his bathing suit and into sweatpants and a sweater that he periodically steals from Peter. 

(“If you want it you can just keep it” 

“Yeah, but it stops smelling like you after a certain point, and that’s like the best part.”) 

When Sam wakes up in the late afternoon, Peter is in the middle of packing, suitcase open on the half of the bed that Sam’s not sleeping on and Sam groans. “Fuck, I don’t wanna pack.” 

Peter makes a little sympathetic noise, in the middle of folding his shirts like he works at goddamn Abercrombie and Fitch as Sam rolls onto his stomach. “Maybe we could convince Miniwaka it’s super vital that I stay a whole extra week and then I just hide out at your house.” 

“And miss the Color War? You love Color War.” 

“I love you more,” Sam says earnestly, and Peter doesn’t say anything, just keeps on folding. “Ahem I _said_ I love _you_ more.” 

“You’re so full of shit,” Peter says, zipping his laptop into a protective case. 

“I’m full of love,” Sam says, pushing himself into a sitting position and stretching his arms over his head.

“Hey, I have something for you,” Peter says, continuing like Sam didn’t say anything at all, and normally Sam hates when he does that but he’s got such a sweet serious look of concentration that Sam doesn’t really begrudge him at all when Peter goes over to the closet and pulls it open. 

“So remember how I told you the production jackets weren’t done yet?”

“Yeaaaah,” Sam says slowly. It had been a bummer, especially since Netflix had said they’d be done by the time he arrived in Los Gatos. 

“Well, uh, I maybe lied, a little?” Peter says, and pulls one of those black garment bags out of the wardrobe. 

“What!? Dude, _what_!?” Sam exclaims, laughing, practically bouncing off the bed. “Let me see, let me see.” 

Peter sets the bag down and unzips it, pulling the bomber jacket off the hanger and handing it to Sam, who immediately starts admiring it as Peter continues, “Yeah they actually came in earlier this week, but uh, I knew you had a request for yours that Netflix probably wouldn’t, uh, accommodate?” 

Sam runs a hand over the black sort of silky material. On the back in large industrial letters it reads _AMERICAN VANDAL_ in red that matches the trim of the jacket and the embroidery on the front that reads ‘Sam Ecklund’ and right under that, ‘Producer.’ 

“God this looks so fucking sweet,” Sam says, already pulling his on. “You got one too right?” 

“Yeah mine’s already packed,” Peter says, biting his bottom lip like he’s trying to hold in a smile as Sam starts checking himself out in the mirror. 

“God, too bad you couldn’t put my nickname on it,” Sam says, 

“Is it?” Peter asks, full on grinning at this point, tapping on Sam’s shoulder. 

“Oh fuck! Holy shit babe!” Sam exclaims, literally giddy as he catches sight of ‘Lil Thottie’ embroidered on the sleeve in cursive. It had just started as a dumb joke off DeMarcus’ offhand comment about Peter having a lot of lil thotties sliding into his DMs, Sam changing his messenger nickname and his name in Peter’s phone almost immediately. But it had quickly gone from a dumb inside joke, to Sam’s semi-official production nickname. 

“Yeah I had to send it out to a custom— ” Peter starts but doesn’t finish as Sam turns on his heel and pulls Peter in by the lapels to kiss him. The first kiss lands mostly on Peter’s chin, but Sam’s not deterred by that as Peter seems to get the memo and starts kissing him back, hands settling on Sam’s hips to pull him closer. 

“I literally fucking adore you,” Sam says when he pulls away, Peter’s glasses tilted just slightly to the side. 

“I adore you too,” Peter says, so fucking earnestly that Sam’s insides turn to chocolate fudge lava cake. 

“Put yours on too, we’ll take a pic for the insta,” Sam says, bouncing on the balls of his feet impatiently as Peter goes to dig his out of his suitcase. “Ahhh wait hold on, I need sunglasses,” Sam adds as Peter pulls his jacket on. 

“We’re inside.” 

“Yeah, so, it’s for the look not the accuracy,” Sam says, snagging a pair of sunglasses from the little counter in the kitchenette. “Okay, okay, I’m good.” 

Peter rolls his eyes affectionately, slipping in under Sam’s arm as they maneuver in front of the mirror and squeeze together in the frame, the backs of their jackets visible in the reflection. 

“Is that too gay for the Vandal insta?” Sam asks, passing his phone to Peter who scrolls through the shots. 

“Yeah I think it’s fine,” Peter says, “Maybe just don’t put— ” 

“I’m not going to call myself lil thottie on the Vandal instagram Pete, c’mon,” Sam says, typing out a caption. “How’s that?” 

“‘The Brain and The Looks rocking some Vandal swag for #postprod at #Netflix,’” Peter reads with deadpan seriousness. “Sam you literally cracked this case, we can both be the brains.” 

“Uh, excuse you, I want to be known as the hot useless one. Get them to underestimate me and my fearless journalism,” Sam says, flopping back down onto the bed that’s not covered with Peter’s suitcase.

“Who’s they?” 

“They! Future vandals!” Sam says. “I don’t know, anyone we can catch off guard by letting them think I’m just a smoldering hot piece of eye candy.” 

“You’re ridiculous,” Peter says, and hands Sam back the phone. 

“And yet you’re dating me,” Sam says, hitting post before Peter can find something else to object to.

“And besides,” Sam continues, reaching up to rub at the embroidery on the sleeve of Peter’s jacket, “You’re not even The Brains, you’re The Boss. Which I find like….incredibly sexy for the record.” 

“You do not,” Peter says, turning. 

“No, actually, I uh, I really, really do,” Sam says. 

“That I’m the Boss?” Peter asks, half jokingly, his voice pitched down. 

“Fuck yeah, you’re the Boss,” Sam says, grabbing Peter by the unzipped sides of his jacket. 

“I’m the Boss,” Peter says and lets Sam pull him the rest of the way down, ready this time for when Sam pulls him into a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss.

“You know, as the Boss I should probably tell you you need to pack,” Peter says, knee on the mattress, Sam bracketed between his arms. 

“Yeah, but you’re not going to,” Sam says as he runs his hands up the sides of his arms and over Peter’s shoulders. 

“You’re going to have to get up early to pack and you’re going to hate it,” Peter says. 

“Probably.” 

“...Can you at least put my glasses somewhere safe if we’re going to do this?” Peter relents after a long moment. 

“You got it boss,” Sam says, reaching up to run hand over Peter’s neck, gently taking his glasses off and setting them on the bedside table before pulling Peter the rest of the way onto the bed. 

Peter is right though because the next morning Sam does have to wake up early and it fucking sucks ass because he’s horrible at packing even when he’s fully awake. And Peter just sits on the one king bed looking lowkey smug and drinking his stupid cold brew coffee while Sam makes like twenty trips back and forth from the bathroom to his suitcase. And he’s too nice to even rub it in Sam’s face so he just has to deal with Peter offering to help every ten minutes. 

Sam fucking loves him so much, the smug asshole. 

Everything’s looking up though by the time they get to the airport after dropping off the rental car. Flying on Netflix’s dime means that they’re in business class and get to chill in the elite lounge. The look on the concierge is priceless when they walk in in their matching jackets, him cooly informing them that this is the preferred passenger lounge, only for Peter to whip out their credentials. It’s those kind of moves that lead to Sam’s late night google searches of things like ‘competency kink definition.’ 

Sam’s almost a little bit bummed that the flight is only about an hour and a half, because business class is fucking dope, and he’s all settled in with some weird fake airline brand La Croix and a complimentary fleece blanket and Peter’s head on his shoulder while he watches some European movie on the little entertainment screen that folds out from his armrest. Sam really is in no rush to get back to Miniwaka with its bugs, and lack of AC, and hordes of kids who can’t seem to make it through a single afternoon without injuring themselves.

Alright maybe that’s not fair, and Sam does actually like his job for the most part. But the appeals of Miniwaka seem so far away when he’s being served complimentary snacks and has as much legroom as he needs and Peter’s so close that Sam can smell his shampoo and everything is cozy and comfortable and good. 

But it’s a short flight and it’s only a matter of time until they’re on the ground and getting their luggage and spending an embarrassingly long time looking for Sam’s car because he can’t remember where he parked. 

“Hello beautiful!” Sam says when he finally manages to catch sight of his little red beat up Yaris which was a hand-me-down from his older sister Lindsay which was in turn a hand-me-down from one of his older cousins. “See, I told you I knew where I parked.” 

“That loses some of its effectiveness after we walked around like the whole level, just statistically speaking,” Peter says, but accepts it when Sam passes him off the luggage cart so he can grab his keys and open the hatch. 

“You should be nicer to me, dude, I’m your ride back to Oceanside.” 

Peter snorts, “You’re just going to abandon your boyfriend in an airport parking garage? That’s cruel.” 

“Puh-lease,” Sam says with a grunt as he hauls his duffel bag. “You’d just text Dylan and he’d come get you because you have that freaky ability to get weirdos to swear a life debt to you.”

Peter scoffs but it turns into more of a wince as he tries to manoeuver his suitcase into the hatch, grabbing for his side as he half drops the case onto the concrete of the parking garage. 

“Pete, hey, shit,” Sam says, rushing to his side. “Babe, fuck, you alright?” 

“I’m fine,” Peter fucking lies, “I’m okay, really, sorry it just slipped.” 

“Dude you really need to see a doctor, go sit in the car, I got it,” Sam says putting Peter’s suitcase in the hatch for him, but Peter just stands there watching. 

Peter rubs at his side intensely. “My family doctor has clinic hours tomorrow, I’ll go then. Seriously, it doesn’t even hurt that bad.” 

Sam frowns, “Okay, fine,” he huffs, going and shoving their luggage cart over by the elevator, Peter already buckled in when he gets back, and it’s a quiet drive for the first few minutes before Sam finally relents to the cold wall of ice radiating off of Peter. 

“Okay look,” Sam says, “I trust you, but you have to admit you’re a fucking insane workaholic. Remember how sick you got when we wrapped on principal photography? You have a history of pushing yourself to the breaking point healthwise. And it’s really fucking awful to watch the person you love be that sick, okay? So I’m probably being really selfish and paranoid but if it means you get a clean bill of health or you get some help I’m willing to be a bit of an asshole about it.” 

“Alright,” Peter says, still sounding a bit pissed but reaching over and patting Sam’s knee affectionately, which always kind of reminds Sam of like, an elderly relative at a family reunion who can’t remember what his name is. But it’s sweet all the same. 

“Hey cool about Tanner and Chloe being a thing now,” Sam says conversationally a few minutes later once they’re settled on the highway. . Tanner had made a really cute facebook status about how July 3rd was clearly his lucky day since it was both the anniversary of him starting T and his first official date with Chloe. Sam had love reacted and left a truly obnoxious string of emojis. 

“Oh speaking of, Kevin got his ankle monitor off the other day. A whole month early because his lawyer made an appeal about needing extra time to adjust before starting school again,” Peter says. 

“Yeah I heard, Chloe texted me,” Sam says. Even though Peter and Chloe were definitely closer during their time in Bellevue, him and Chloe have really bonded over the last few months, especially once Sam knew he’d gotten into Berkeley. They text a lot too, not just about Berkeley but about lots of things. He’s pretty sure he texts her more than Peter, but Peter’s always been better at maintaining relationships face to face than via text. 

She also keeps him fairly updated on Kevin, whether he wants to or not. There was just something about Kevin, who fell into that particularly unfortunate category of straight guys who people think are gay and who because of it is _sort_ of a good ally, but in a way that’s kind of self serving and is _way_ too invested in ‘stereotyping.’ And while Sam has to admit that Kevin definitely grew on him, especially after all the catfishing stuff came out, there’s something about the two of them that doesn’t totally mesh. 

Unlike Peter, who Sam is pretty sure could stare intensely at basically anyone with his big soulful brown eyes and ask questions with his serious journalist voice for a few minutes and they’d be champing at the bit to swear their unwavering loyalty and affection. 

Which okay, is maybe a hypocritical given that Sam himself had fallen ass over teakettle for Peter’s big brown eyes a long while before the whole serious journalist schtick had even appeared. 

Anyways, even if it’s Kevin McClain, Sam appreciates the olive branch of the topic change. And Peter seems more or less back to his usual self, which involves a lot of bouncing ideas off of Sam for the doc, by the time they’re pulling into Oceanside. Sam doesn’t have to be at camp for another few hours so they make a detour to Five Guys, Peter giving Sam this absolutely lovestruck moony look when Sam gets his entire order right without having to ask (Bacon cheeseburger with lettuce, pickles, grilled onions, jalapenos, barbecue sauce and mayo, chocolate-coffee milkshake, small cajun fry). 

They go to Peter’s house to eat, Sam insisting on carrying his suitcase into the house despite Peter’s repeated protestations that he’s _fine_ , while Peter carries the bag of food, setting everything up on the crazy expensive raw edge dining room table. Sam can enjoy the irony of the contrast as he dips a cajun fry into the little puddle of ketchup he made on top of a napkin. 

“We have ramekins,” Peter says, in that tone when he’s trying not to be judgmental but he’s really judging hardcore. 

“Look I didn’t say anything when you went to get a plate to put the fries on, I’m drawing the line at ramekins,” Sam says, pushing his hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand. He’d been too busy packing to gel it when he’d first gotten out of the shower and by the time he was done it had dried too much and he was stuck with his Justin Bieber wannabe bangs. Which honestly, he could dig for the most part, but they keep falling into his eyes and it’s hard to deal with when he has cajun spice mix all over his fingers. 

“Do you want some help there?” Peter asks the second time in thirty seconds that Sam tries, and fails, to get his hair out of his eyes. 

“Yeah,” Sam says pouting melodramatically. 

“Poor,” Peter says equally melodramatically and reaches over to gently push Sam’s bangs to the side. 

“God, that’s what I’m doing with my next Netflix check,” Sam says, chewing thoughtfully. 

“Buying more gel?” 

“No, I’m gonna hire someone to follow after me and push my hair out of my eyes,” Sam says. 

“Wow, just pushing me right out of the picture,” Peter says. “After all I’ve done for you.”

“Hey, you’re the Sarah Koenig of Netflix. You don’t have time to be pushing my bangs out of my eyes,” Sam says, poking Peter in the calf with his socked foot under the table. 

Peter rolls his eyes but there’s still something bashful about him, always just a little bit embarrassed to have his own genius pointed out to him. 

“Also please eat more fries because we still have so many left in the bag,” Sam says, tipping the rest of the fries onto the plate, the completely useless cup they came with discarded somewhere. “You know, I can respect their whole thing of just giving you a fuck ton of fries, but I don’t need the charade of the cup. You’re not fooling anyone, Five Guys.” 

“I’m not really that hungry, honestly,” Peter says. “I think I’m just gonna save the rest for later, unless you wanna take it with you?” 

“Nah dude, we can’t have outside food on site it’s like an allergen risk or whatever,” Sam says. 

“ _Dude_ ,” Peter echoes. 

“What?” 

“Nothing, it just reminds me of when you’d go into on-camera mode and you’d swap out ‘babe’ for ‘dude.’”

“What?” Sam says nose scrunching. “No I don’t.” 

“Yes you do! Did you not know you were doing that!?” Peter asks with a laugh. “Sam, you did it literally constantly, I have been editing for like a month I know what your on-camera code switches are.” 

“Hrghhh, shut up,” Sam splutters. “I’m just trying to be professional.” 

“You’re doing a great job,” Peter says placatingly, shoving the leftover half of his burger onto the mountain of fries and taking the whole thing into the kitchen. 

“I should probably head,” Sam calls after him, stretching his arms over his head. “I need to stop off at home to pick up some stuff.” 

“Oh,” Peter says disappointedly. “I thought maybe you could hang for a bit? My mom’s still at that real estate convention in Albuquerque for like another two days.” 

“Peter Maldonado are you ‘my parents aren’t home’-ing me?” Sam says, standing and tucking in his chair, enjoying Peter’s little indignant snort in response. “I am very flattered but unfortunately I really do need to like, do laundry and repack every blue thing I own.” 

“You should repaint your car,” Peter says. “Show your total commitment to the Color War.” 

“I know you’re making fun of me but honestly that’s a great idea,” Sam says, following Peter down the hall back towards the entryway and sitting on the second step of the staircase to pull his shoes back on, Peter biting at the side of his thumb quietly. 

“Hey,” Sam says softly, standing. “Hey, c’mere.” 

“You don’t have to comfort me, I’m not sad.” 

“Well I am,” Sam says, bending his knees so he can tuck his head onto Peter’s shoulder. They’re basically the same height, which is awesome for sharing clothes and kissing and….other things, but it means that one of them sort of has to artificially make themselves shorter when they hug. Sam doesn’t really mind though, leaning his body weight into Peter, who wraps his arms around Sam and traces the pattern of what Sam is like ninety-nine percent sure is a heart onto his shoulder blade. 

“I’ll be done in three weeks and then we have two weeks before the semester starts,” Sam says, for his own benefit as much as Peter’s. 

“God, remind me again why we’re going to colleges six hours away from each other?” Peter says. 

“Fuck, remind me why we’re going to college at all. We’re investigative journalism wunderkinds. We have fancy jackets from Netflix. Why are we doing this to ourselves?” 

“Mostly because I think our parents would kill us otherwise,” Peter says diplomatically. 

“God, you’re so smart,” Sam says, tilting his head back and kissing the underside of Peter’s jaw. 

“You should probably go,” Peter says pulling away. 

“Yeah, probably,” Sam says and Peter gently pushes his floppy bangs out of his eyes again. 

“Text me when you get to camp,” Peter says, leaning in to accept Sam’s kiss in the doorway, pulling him back when Sam tries to pull away and drawing it out to something longer and sweeter. A farewell kiss instead of a goodbye. 

“You’re such a sap,” Sam says, ducking another kiss to the side of Peter’s face. “You’re going to the doctor tomorrow, right?” 

“Mhmmm,” Peter says. “Please stop worrying about it, I feel about 90% certain they’re just gonna be like ‘oh looks like you smacked yourself and you’re bruised, now get out of my office.’”

Sam doesn’t totally agree about that, but it’s not like he wants the last thing he says to Peter for like three weeks to be arguing with him. So he just cups the back of Peter’s head and gives him one last goodbye kiss.

“Okay, love you, I’ll see you in three weeks,” Sam says. 

“Love you too,” Peter says, and he stays leaning into the doorway until Sam’s at the door of his car, blowing him one last melodramatic kiss before climbing in. 

It’s a short drive over to his own house, and Sam spends a few hours doing laundry and re-packing while his parents take turns interrogating him about camp and Los Gatos and Peter and the stuff he got in the mail from Berkeley since he’s been gone. He doesn’t actually manage to sit down at all until his last load of things is in the dryer. 

“Nice jacket,” his sister Lindsay says when he finally collapses onto the sectional, perfectly happy to spend his last forty five minutes of vacation as horizontally as possible. “Nice to know the good people of Netflix have no qualms about calling you a thot.” 

“Peter got it custom made,” Sam says.

“You know it’s weird you said that like a brag, right?” Lindsay says, standing up and going over to rummage around in the basement freezer for a long few moments, before pulling out a box of ice cream sandwiches and holding it triumphant above her head. 

“Eh, sauce me one,” Sam says, holding his hands out to catch as Lindsay lobs one at him underhand. 

“How’s your boy anyways?” Lindsay says, chucking the rest of the box back in the freezer and shutting the lid with a dull thunk. 

“Pete? He’s good,” Sam says. “He’s supposed to be on vacation this week but he’ll probably spend the whole time working, honestly. How’s _your_ boy?” 

“Daniel’s fine. Did I tell you he got transferred to the Hilton so him and Colin are at the same location now?” Lindsay says. “Which is awesome for them, but also dad’s been kind of on my case about ‘getting serious about my career’ because heaven forbid we don’t all graduate with job offers at fine dining establishments.” 

“It’s so fucking weird that Colin has like...a real job now.” 

“Dude, you also have a job,” Lindsay says through a mouthful of ice cream sandwich. 

“Yeah but like, it’s just Miniwaka that’s not a job-job.” 

Lindsay just stares back at him unimpressed for a long moment, her eyebrows raising incredulously. 

“Oh wait, I guess, like, Netflix,” Sam says. 

“Yeah that multi-billion dollar international media conglomeration that writes you checks, Jesus Christ Sam,” Lindsay says. “You really do not need to be jealous of your brother who works for a glorified Outback Steakhouse.” 

Sam opens his mouth to argue back that that’s not really much of an insult, but he’s cut off by the beeping of the dryer, and it feels a bit stupid to argue back when he walks back into the rec room with a whole hamper full of warm laundry and Lindsay is eating a second ice cream sandwich and watching _Jane the Virgin_. 

It takes Sam kind of a stupid long time to repack his duffel with his dad coming into his room every five minutes to remind him about FAFSA applications or getting the car checked out before he moves, but finally, _finally_ Sam manages to get everything sorted and is on the road. It’s not a far drive to Miniwaka, only about forty-five minutes from Sam’s house, so he ends up arriving just around dinner, but it takes him long enough to get his stuff back to the staff cabins that dinner is basically over when he rolls into the mess hall. 

Since he’s not a counsellor in the traditional sense, but rather the head of the Theatre and Arts programming (affectionately known as Tarts), he doesn’t stay in a cabin with campers but lives mostly with the kitchen staff. So there’s a bit of a stir of excitement when he rolls into the kitchen, his bunkmate Gregg coming over and hugging him so hard he pulls Sam a clean few inches off the floor, and the ego boost really does help with the reality of his return to Miniwaka food. 

After dinner Sam walks down to the nurse’s cabin, which is the only building on camp property that gets a decent wifi signal, sitting on the edge of the porch while he waits for the wifi to connect. 

_Hey at miniwaka safe and sound <3 _Sam sends Peter via Facebook messenger, followed by a sticker of a turtle wearing heart shaped sunglasses. He dicks around on his socials for a while, commenting on the instagram photo that Chloe had posted of the two of them from back in February when they’d gone bowling for her birthday. Sam’s perfectly happy to flick around on social media for longer, switching between sites like the good Gen Z he is, but he really needs to unpack still. 

_I gtg let me know how the doctor goes_ , Sam sends Peter and then takes the back route back to the parking lot, avoiding the sports field where evening programming was currently happening. Which kind of sucks because his duffel is somehow way more heavy than he thought it was and he’s ready to collapse onto his shitty rubber-coated mattress by the time he makes it to his cabin. 

He doesn’t even make it upstairs to his room, opting instead to chuck his duffel in the entryway and crash on one of the open chairs in the circle of kitchen staff playing _Sushi Go_ in the living room. 

“Sam!” Emily Hershey exclaims, hoping out of her seat to come over to hug him, which is a rare gesture of physical affection from her. The surprise must show on his face because she quickly explains, “I just figure I’m going to have to be mean to you for the rest of the week so you deserve some affection now.” 

“Oh yeah, shit, we’re mortal enemies starting in like, six hours from now,” Sam says. Since Emily’s the other programming head of sports and watercraft she’s the Red Team’s coordinator for the Color War. It’s basically like being kind of a mascot/cheerleader for the team, which Sam is honestly looking forward to if only because it involves _way_ less planning than his usual Tarts programming stuff. And because he’s super into any opportunity to wear something ridiculous involving body paint. 

“You wanna play next round?” Emily asks, but Sam shakes his head, and it’s kind of pathetic how much legitimate effort it takes for him to get out of his chair. 

“Nah I should really go unpack,” Sam says. “But enjoy winning now because you’re going to end up in the dust this week.” 

“You wiiish,” Emily sing-songs at him as Sam grabs his duffel bag off the floor and heaves it over his shoulder. 

Sam shoves the door open with his shoulder, breathing in the weirdly nostalgic familiar scent of stained wood, citronella candles, and b.o., and dumps his bag onto his bare mattress. It’s not that late, he’s pretty sure the junior campers haven’t even been sent to bed yet, but after the early start and the flight and all the driving it’s like moving through Miniwaka’s cement-like oatmeal trying to get unpacked. He ends up just cutting his losses, leaving most of his stuff in a pile at the end of the bed and crashing early. 

Which is kind of a good choice and kind of a bad choice because he sure does have to be up at 6:00 am, and while he’s glad he got as much sleep as possible, it’s very difficult to try and quietly rummage around for all the stuff he needs for his costume. 

It’s Miniwaka tradition for the two coordinators to show up to morning flag pole as decked out as possible in order to get their teams revved up for the Color War, and Sam takes his job _very_ seriously. He’s fashioned what can really only be described as a toga out of a blue towel over his all-blue ensemble, and is in the middle of coating his arms and legs in non-toxic paint when there’s a knock at the door of the cabin. 

Sam pauses his painting, brush in hand, and Emily, who is also in the middle of the living room getting ready waves a hand at him, “I got it, please don’t get paint all over everything.” 

She comes back a few seconds later with Dave, the camp nurse who gestures for Sam to follow him. “No, leave the paint,” Dave says when Sam unthinkingly starts to follow with the bottle of paint and brush in hand. 

“Uh, not to jump to the worst conclusion but am I in trouble?” Sam asks cautiously once they’re off the porch of the staff cabin. The half-dried paint on his legs is really starting to itch and he really has no idea why he would be being summoned at quarter to seven otherwise. The only thing that really springs to mind is that Jim, the camp director, finally saw Vandal and is not happy with Sam’s part in Peter (very poorly) lying to get information about Christa’s CPR certification, but it seems kind of weird 

“Oh my god, no Sam, not at all. You got an urgent call up at the office.” 

Sam frowns. “An urgent call? Oh crap was, was it a guy?” His mind is already rushing ahead to the twelve worst case scenarios he can imagine about Peter, but David shakes his head. 

“No it was a woman, young-sounding.” 

Sam frowns, “My sister maybe?” He has no idea why Lindsay would be calling him, if there was some sort of family emergency it seems weird that she’d be calling him instead of his parents, but his stomach ties up tight at the idea regardless.

Dave pulls open the screen door on the office porch open for him, Jim leaning up against his desk and drinking a cup off coffee out of a Miniwaka mug, the old school wall phone sitting off the hook, the receiver face down on the desk. 

“Morning Sam,” Jim says. “You want me to hold the receiver for you?” 

“Oh, no, my hands should be dry,” Sam says awkwardly, but he picks up the phone gingerly all the same. 

“Well we’ll give you some space, holler if you need something,” Jim says, and Dave follows him out of the office, Sam taking a long breath before putting the phone to his ear. 

“Hello? Lindsay?” 

“Oh my god, Sam! Hi!” A light familiar feminine voice that Sam can’t place trills back, “It’s Ivy Claire.” 

Sam blinks, mind frantically trying to figure out why Dylan Maxwell’s girlfriend of all people is calling him at the asscrack of dawn. Not that he doesn’t like Dylan’s girlfriend. Ivy Claire is super nice and they’ve gone on a bunch of double dates together which have always been more fun than he’s expected, but it’s still very weird that she’s calling him on the camp landline with an urgent matter. “Uh, hi Ivy Claire, is everything okay?” Sam asks cautiously, still more confused than anything. 

“Ha, well,” Ivy Claire says slowly. “Okay so the first thing to know is that everything’s fine.” 

“Oh god,” Sam says, “Is Dylan okay?”

“Oh my god, no, no, Dylan’s fine,” Ivy Claire says very quickly. “No he’s totally fine. And, well, Peter’s okay too. Kind of.” 

The bottom falls out of Sam’s stomach and he grips the receiver tighter. “What?” 

“I guess he was— I wasn’t there, but I guess he was in a lot of pain last night kind of late and Peter called Dylan to take him to emerge and they were there I think like seven hours last night.” 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. “Do they know what’s wrong?” 

“Yeah, they did a blood test and it turns out it’s appendicitis,” Ivy Claire says, and then in a rush. “He’s already in a room and on the schedule for surgery.” 

It honestly would be almost funny if Sam’s heart wasn’t beating so stupidly fast. The internet, for once, was actually totally right about something and Sam had just let Peter shrug it off and refuse to do anything about it. An actual medical emergency. 

“Sam? Are you there?” Ivy Claire asks. 

“Yeah, yeah sorry,” Sam says. 

“Dylan went home to take a nap so I’m here at the hospital with Peter now, he’s just sleeping too but he asked me if I could call you.” 

“Did Pete tell his mom?” Sam asks. He knows Mrs. Maldonado is out of town for a conference, but he supposes she’d probably drop everything and fly home if Peter’s literally in the middle of a medical emergency. Which is exactly why he’s worried that Peter hasn’t told her yet. 

“I think so,” Ivy Claire says. “Sorry, I’m hearing all of this like third hand through Dylan so I’m not totally sure, I can ask when he wakes up.” 

“Yeah, of course,” Sam says. “Um, I’m not sure if I can leave camp now but I might be able to drive into town later in the day...I don’t know.” If it were any other week he’d almost certainly be able to slip home for a medical emergency, but during Color War? Sam is doubtful, especially since there’s not really anyone else he can hand off his job to. 

“Okay, well I think mostly Peter just wanted you to know what’s going on. Actually, hold on one second,” Ivy Claire says and then there’s a long pause on the line before she comes back, “I thought maybe he was about to wake up but I think he was just rolling over. But I’ll tell him I called you when he wakes up, and then actually, if you call the hospital and ask for room 326 they can patch you through if you want to check in later.” 

“Yeah okay, okay,” Sam says licking his lips, feeling like his brain and his mouth are working at two entirely different speeds. “Thanks Ivy Claire you’re the best. Can you say thanks to Dylan for me?” 

“Of course!” she says.

“I should uh, I should probably go,” Sam says. “I’ll call later.” 

“Okay Sam,” Ivy Claire says. “Try not to worry too much. His pain has been a lot less today.” 

“Jesus,” Sam says softly. “Okay, thanks again.” 

“No problem, talk soon!” Ivy Claire says, and then hangs up, leaving Sam standing alone in the camp office, half painted blue, looking listlessly down on the receiver which he did end up getting paint on after all. 

It’s a long minute or so before Jim knocks on the doorframe twice before stepping back into the office. “Everything okay Sam?”

“Yeah um,” Sam says, swallowing hard, “Peter, uh, my boyfriend, he has appendicitis. I guess he’s having surgery or something?” 

“Oh I had my appendix out,” Jim says conversationally setting his mug down on the desk. “It’s a pretty routine procedure, but if you want some time off…” 

“No, I can’t, the Color War,” Sam says abruptly.

Jim laughs, “It’s not an actual war Sam, I’m sure we can manage just fine without you for a few days. I’m sure your boyfriend would like you to be there, and I bet it would make you feel better too.” 

“I just had my week off,” Sam says, and then feels stupid, why is he arguing _against_ going home to go be with Peter while he’s in the hospital for fucks sake. 

“Sam,” Jim says like he’s being ridiculous. “Go have a shower. Go home. Be there for your partner. We will manage without you.” 

“Thanks Jim,” Sam manages finally. “Sorry I got paint on your phone.” 

“Ahhh, well, that I can’t abide,” Jim jokes, grabbing a tissue from the box and wiping off the receiver. “Just keep us in the loop about when you think you’re going to be back, okay? I’ll handle getting your sessions covered. Hell, I’ll paint myself blue if I need to.” 

Sam lets out a half-hearted laugh and sees himself out of the cabin, working mostly on autopilot as he makes his way back to the staff cabin. He’s grateful, not for the first time, that the staff cabin has indoor plumbing and he gets to shower in a bathroom with a door lock and not deal with the communal showers right now. Though it does mean he has to scrub the bottom of the shower out when he’s done to get all the paint off. 

For the second day in a row he skips gelling his hair. It feels weirdly selfish to be taking any longer than necessary to get ready when Peter is literally lying in a hospital bed, so he just throws on what he was wearing yesterday and slaps on one of the eight or so _24 Stop_ hats he’d bought during production. Hesitating for a long minute over whether or not he needs to pack anything to bring back to Oceanside, he eventually decides that anything he’d need he probably either has at home or can pick up pretty easily. 

There’s a soft knock on the doorframe and Sam turns to see Emily gazing at him sympathetically in her ridiculous all-red outfit. “Hey, Jim told me about Peter.”

Sam lets out a soft huffing laugh. “Yeah, I’m gone for twelve hours and all hell breaks loose.” 

Emily lets out an equally half-hearted laugh, coming over and hugging him tight around the waist for a long moment. “Tell Peter I say feel better soon,” she says, mostly into Sam’s chest. 

They’re not _that_ close with Emily, but they’d all been on the Morning Show together for three years, and as the first openly out kids in their grade they’d always had this weird sort of unspoken bond with her. She gives him a little pat on the back before stepping away, adjusting her red-scrunchied ponytail. 

“You heading out?” She asks. 

“Yeah,” Sam says, gesturing with his keys in hand as he follows her out of his room and down the stairs. “I figure there’s not really any point sitting around.” 

Emily nods. “Yeah, and if you go now you should still be ahead of most of the traffic.” 

“Totally.” They step off the porch together, Emily heading right towards the heart of camp and Sam turning left towards the parking lot. “You know, I’d _say_ have a good Color War, but even with me gone, Blue Team is still going to kick some serious ass sooooo…” 

“Yeah dream on,” Emily says over her shoulder with a snort, and it feels good to have a moment of completely normalcy in the chaos. 

Sam can already hear the Color War chants starting as he makes it to the staff parking lot and he sits there for a long moment in his car before reaching over to turn on the ignition. It’s like, he knows he should really probably be feeling _more_ but mostly he just feels not much at all. It’s just routine to trace the familiar route back to Oceanside, though Sam’s not totally sure how best to get to the hospital, so he pulls off into one of those service station rest stops to pull up directions on his phone. 

He’s just about to set his phone back up in the little magnetized hands-free cradle when it starts buzzing with an incoming call from Gabi. Which is kind of weird given that she knows he’s supposed to be at camp right now and also she’s in Stanford for the summer since she didn’t wanna sublet her place. But Sam’s never going to turn down an opportunity to talk to his best friend, especially given the circumstances, so he slides to answer, cradling the phone between his ear and his shoulder. 

“Hey, why the hell is Peter in the hospital?” Gabi says before Sam can even say hello.

“He— what? How do you even know about that?” 

“It’s on twitter,” Gabi says. “I guess Dylan kinda posted about it and then people started, like, speculating.” 

“Oh Jesus Christ,” Sam says, rubbing a hand over his face. For the most part, being kind of sort of public figures hasn’t messed with their lives too much, other than the occasional awkward DM or fan encounter. But it sure does mean that things like them going to prom together or Peter being in the hospital are elevated to the status of very minor news stories. 

“I’m just saying, you might wanna do some damage control because you’ve got a lot of misinformation flying around. I’ve seen at least two things about it being a car accident.” 

“God no, he just has appendicitis,” Sam says. “I mean, they’re still going to have to do surgery but like, he’s fine.” 

“Yeah,” Gabi says, and exhales out slowly. “That’s scary though still. You doing okay?” 

“Oh yeah I’m good, just going to pull the biggest ‘I told you so ever’ when I roll up to that hospital room. I googled this literally days ago and he was all like ‘if I had a headache the internet would say I had cancer.’”

“Or maybe you can save the gloating until post op.” 

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best,” Sam says. “Anyways I gotta run.” 

“Okay, keep me in the loop. If you post something I’ll boost so the twittersphere knowns our favourite documentarian isn’t lying in a shallow grave.” 

“I resent the implication that I am not your favourite documentarian.” 

“ _Sam_.” 

“Okay, okay, bye,” Sam says, and he can practically hear Gabi rolling her eyes as the line cuts off on the other end. 

Once he’s back on the road it’s only about another twenty minutes or so to the hospital, but he gets caught up for easily _another_ twenty minutes first trying to figure out the totally arbitrary parking system, and then ending up in the totally wrong building and having to double back through one of those bridges between buildings that make him super anxious for no real logical reason. So thanks to that it’s almost an hour later when Sam finally manages to track down the right section of the right building where Peter's room is.

“Sorry,” the nurse at the nurses' station tells him when he dutifully recites the room number to her, having written it on his arm in pen so he wouldn't forget. “We have a two guest policy.”

“Could I go see if someone would maybe leave so I could see him? Please?” Sam says. And he really must look as wounded as he sounds because the nurse sighs and says, “Alright, sign in here and make sure you send someone to sign out.”

“Thank you so much,” Sam says, throwing a quick signature onto the sheet and flashing his most charming grateful smile on his way around the nurse's station.

Peter's room is right at the end of the hall and Sam pauses for a second in the doorway when he doesn't see Peter, or Dylan or Ivy Claire or whoever his two guests are, but a college-aged looking dude reading from a thick textbook with a picture of some pleasantly diverse children on the front. He looks up when Sam hesitates, “Hey sorry, uh I think I have the wrong room— ”

“Sam!” Someone shouts, and Sam has just enough time to register what he'd taken to be the back wall of the room is actually a privacy curtain which is pulled back to reveal the smiling face of Lucas Wiley.

“Is that Sam!?” Ganj's voice echoes before she's peering out of the curtain too, letting out a pleased little whoop and coming over to hug him around the waist just a little too hard.

“Dude!” Lucas says, offering Sam a tight hand clasp and hug. It had taken him a little bit to get used to how physically affectionate all the Wayback Boys were when he'd first kind of broken in through Peter, but it's kind of nice in a weird way.

“Hey, so I hate to do this,” Sam starts, taking a step back out of the bro hug, “but Peter's only allowed to have two guests at a time, soooo...”

“Oh, no dude, you're good. We just wanted to keep our boy company cause Ivy had to go to work,” Ganj says. “We'll head out.”

“Thanks guys,” Sam says. “By the way I am _loving_ the sideshave.”

Ganj rubs a hand over the freshly shaved half of her hair. “Lesbian bat signal.”

“Smart,” Sam says. “Thanks for coming by to check on Peter.”

“'Course,” Lucas says with a shrug. “Appendicitis fucking sucks. I got it in ninth grade. Got to miss school for a week though so that was chill.”

The guy reading the textbook puts his book down on the little tray table attached to the bed, not loudly exactly, but purposefully, and then pulls out a pair of thick noise-cancelling headphones. Sam takes the hint.

“Anyways, thanks again and you gotta sign out with the nurse.”

“For sure, for sure,” Lucas says.

“Don't forget, no strenuous activity for a week, Sammy boy,” Ganj says, slapping him playfully on the arm on her way out the door.

Sam exhales a long deep breath before stepping past the college guy and his trying-too-hard-to-be-diverse textbook and around the curtain, pulling it closed behind him. Peter is sitting up in the bed in a light cream and blue patterned hospital gown, his phone sitting in his lap and an IV inserted into his arm.

“Hi,” Peter says, almost embarrassedly. “Please don't say I told you so.”

Sam opens his mouth to reply but all that comes out is a small completely involuntary little sob, escaping from where it's been sitting at the back of his throat since Ivy Claire called him that morning.

“Fuck,” Sam says, half-choking on it. 

“Sammy,” Peter says softly, openly his arms and gesturing for him.

“Oh my god don't, you're the one who's sick,” Sam says.

“So?” Peter says, and gestures again impatiently until Sam sits on the side of the bed and lets Peter hug him for a long minute until Sam feels like he can actually breathe deep enough to get air into his lungs.

“How's your pain?” Sam says, pulling back but staying put on the side of the bed.

“It's okay, better than yesterday.”

“Good. Well not like good-good, but.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, running a hand over Sam's forearm, and then saying not unkindly, “You didn't have to leave camp. It's Color War.”

“Pete oh my god, I don't care about the fucking Color War,” Sam says, too harsh, and he half expects Peter to pull his hand off his arm, but Peter just keeps stroking his shoulder gently.

“Okay,” Peter says finally.

“Is your mom coming?”

“Yeah, she'll be in around dinner time. She tried to get an earlier flight but it fell through.”

“Shit, I haven't even told my parents I'm not at camp,” Sam says, pulling out his phone, half a dozen text alerts clouding his lockscreen. “Ah Jesus, I guess Gabi wasn't kidding about the twittersphere exploding.” He has ten new text messages, a missed call from Lindsay and one from their liaison at Netflix, and if he hadn't turned his Instagram notifications off ages ago Sam's sure he'd have hundreds, maybe thousands.

“Why?” Peter asks, adjusting his glasses and peering over Sam's shoulder at his phone. “What happened?”

Sam snorts. “You happened. I guess Dylan posted some stuff about being at the hospital with you and now everyone thinks you're dying.”

Sam can practically see Peter's blood pressure spiking, and he holds up a hand preemptively. “Up bup bup! No. Stop. You are sick, I will call Netflix and we can post on the Vandal instagram something tasteful. And yes, you can have final say on the caption, now look sick but not too sick.”

“I don't think a selfie is particularly tasteful,” Peter says.

“Well not when you talk and ruin it,” Sam says, deleting the blurry photo he took of Peter mid-protestation.

“Use that,” Peter says pointing to the white board hanging opposite his bed, which is divided into three sections, Peter's name written in blue dry erase marker at the top. In one section it says 'Daily Goal: Ultrasound to Confirm Diagnosis,' in another 'Nurse on Duty: Craig' and in the last section there's a drawing of a dick (sans ball hairs).

“Craig's a fan,” Peter explains as Sam snaps a pic.

“It's perfect,” Sam says, and then types a quick caption before handing Peter his phone. “How's that sound?”

“'Peter checked into the hospital with appendicitis diagnosis, but vandals beware he should be back on his feet by the end of the week —Sam,'” Peter reads aloud. “Yeah, I think it sounds good. But maybe call Netflix before you post it?”

“Smart,” Sam says, taking his phone back. “I'm going to step out, don't die while I'm gone.”

Peter rolls his eyes, leaning back against his pillows as Sam slips out of the room and into the hall. He calls his dad first, who is kind of weirdly nonchalant about the whole thing, and then their Netflix liaison, who leaves him on hold for at least five minutes, before being mostly preoccupied with how this might affect their post-production schedule.

“Alright, calls made, post posted,” Sam says as he slips back around the privacy curtain and sits in one of the less-comfortable-than-they-look chairs beside Peter's bed. “Fuck, how is it only ten?”

He should really look at his text messages, but god he's so exhausted by this whole situation and the thought of having to reassure twelve different people that Peter is fine just sounds like a special circle of hell.

“I found the leak,” Peter says, not looking up from his phone. “Someone saw me and Dylan waiting in the ER yesterday and got a picture.” He turns his screen towards Sam so he can see. It's not a very good picture at all, but it's captioned 'am I going crazy or are Peter and Dylan from American Vandal in the ER?' with a metric fuck ton of hashtags, so that explains why so many people saw it.

“Also this,” Peter adds, scrolling back through his phone and showing Sam a photo from Dylan's instagram, Ivy Claire standing in front of a sign that says ICU, her hand covering the U so all that's visible is IC.

“That's actually very cute,” Sam says, kicking his feet up on the edge of Peter's hospital bed. “She was so sweet this morning when she called me. Also, total tangent, do you need me to get you anything from your place? Do you have like a toothbrush and stuff?”

Peter shakes his head. “No, I packed a bag before I called Dylan. I wanted to be prepared for the worst.

“Fucking appendicitis, I almost can't believe it. It just feels too...melodramatic?”

“Yeah, I've not totally come to terms with the fact that I'm going to have surgery tomorrow,” Peter says. “I've never been under before, not even when I got my wisdom teeth out.”

“Yeah I remember,” Sam says, indulging in the memory of how precious Peter had been with his swollen cheeks and mild confusion.

“You know the fact that you said that like you were reminiscing about our first date was weird, right? You know that.”

“Our first date was getting McDonald's breakfast before The Morning Show, you with absolutely no filter was much more special.”

“You're the worst.”

“No I'm not you, love me.”

“I can love you _and_ you can be the worst, those aren't mutually exclusive,” Peter points out. 

“Fair,” Sam says, half cut off by the sound of his stomach growling loudly.

“Oh my god was that _you_?”

“Sorry, I haven't eaten yet,” Sam says.

“That was so fucking loud.”

“Yes Peter, I have not eaten yet.” 

Peter pats him on the ankle. “There’s a cafeteria downstairs if you want to get food.”

“You know, I just might, you want anything?” Sam says, pulling his feet off the bed and standing. 

“I’m on surgery standby so I’m not allowed to eat,” Peter says and Sam pulls a sympathetic face as he pulls his wallet out of his back pocket. “It’s not that bad, one of the symptoms of appendicitis is loss of appetite.” 

“Poor Peter,” Sam says melodramatically, ducking a kiss to Peter’s forehead. “Be right back.” He slips around the privacy curtain and ducks out of the room, stopping to consult a map of the building by the elevator so he doesn’t end up wandering around the hospital aimlessly. Again. 

He’s there and back in less than ten minutes, and there’s a nurse taking Peter’s blood pressure when Sam gets back to the room. 

“Oh my god, hey, you’re Sam!” the nurse says, and Sam figures this must be Craig the fanboy, and he accepts his enthusiastic handshake, shifting his wrapped bagel to sit precariously on top of his takeout cup of tea. “I’m such a big fan of you guys. I’m so hype for season two.” 

“Awww thanks man,” Sam says as Craig unfastens the cuff off of Peter’s arm with a loud rip of velcro. “Peter really outdid himself.”

“It’s cool that you guys are, you know, bros in real life,” Craig says. “I’ve heard like, the Buzzfeed Unsolved guys aren’t even friends.” 

Sam presses his mouth into a tight line, holding back a smile as he raises his eyebrows at Peter, who makes a polite inoffensive sound of interest. 

“Anyways, we’re going to try and get you in for an ultrasound within a few hours, and as soon as we can visually confirm we’ll get you into surgery. Which means no food or drink,” Craig adds eyeing Sam suspiciously. 

“Yeah, got it. Thanks,” Peter says, and Craig gives them a thumbs up, pulling the curtain closed behind him. 

“Oh my goddddd,” Sam says softly, setting his food down on the little side table. He can still hear Craig shuffling around on the other side of the curtain, presumably taking the vitals of Peter’s roommate.

“Ryan and Shane are like...absolutely friends,” Peter says more baffled than annoyed. 

“Peter, light of my life, fire of my soul, will you,” Sam says, kneeling beside Peter’s bed, “Be my bro in real life?” 

“You’re so dumb,” Peter says but with so much softness and affection in his voice he might as well be saying I love you. Though that’s a bit undercut by him practically shoving Sam over. 

Ever since they got together they’ve walked this weird line with their public personas where it’s not exactly a _secret_ that they’re together, but they haven’t gone out of their way to broadcast it either. Sam knows everyone thinks it’s for Peter’s benefit, and while it’s true that Peter takes his journalistic integrity serious to the point of occasionally being frustrating, Sam is just as happy to give their relationship and their budding careers as investigative documentarians some breathing room from each other. 

It tends to be about 50/50 at this point when people know and when they don’t. Which had been kind of wild when they were at St. Bernie’s investigating and Peter got asked out no less than five times while Sam was standing right there. 

“Scoot, I wanna sit,” Sam says, patting at Peter’s legs under the thin hospital sheets while he slips out of his shoes. 

Peter slides over dutifully so Sam can stretch out beside him, unwrapping his bagel and setting his tea to cool on the little attached tray. “So what actually, like, happened? Between me leaving and Ivy Claire calling me?” 

“Uhhh, a lot of waiting in the ER mostly,” Peter says. “Yesterday I was getting like, these stabby waves of pain around like seven, but it wasn’t that bad, like, it hurt but I thought I’d be fine until I could go to the doctor. And then around eleven they started getting so bad where, they’d last like ten seconds and during the worst part I literally couldn’t even think it hurt so bad. So that’s when I called Dylan.” 

Sam makes a sympathetic little noise. “Anyways so Dylan shows up, we get to the ER and I tell the nurse like, I have this stabbing pain in my side, I think it might be appendicitis. This is like, midnight. Around one I have an examination which mostly consisted of a nurse just pushing on my side a lot and then a blood test to confirm. And then we waited for like, another five hours and I guess they just like, forgot to send someone out to tell us that the blood test had come back positive for appendicitis but that they were waiting on a bed for me.”

“Oh shit.” 

“Yeah so I’m just getting more and more fucking paranoid, and the pain has gone down a lot at this point but there’s people who showed up _hours_ after us who are getting processed through. And god, like it’s Dylan so he’s trying to be really positive and supportive and like, telling me all the dumb shit he did that landed him in the ER and I’m just sitting there like, cool I’m gonna die I guess. Really should have gotten it in the Netflix contract if I die that Sam gets final say on the cut of season two.”

“So glad to see you always have your priorities in order.” 

“Anyways I’m drafting an email to Netflix— ” 

“ —Peter oh my god— ” 

“ —And that’s when a nurse comes up and is like, okay we have a bed ready for you, we’ll send you up to your room, and please remember that I don’t even know I _have_ appendicitis at this point. So that was kind of, uh, news.” 

“Christ, yeah,” Sam says, licking some leftover cream cheese off his thumb. 

“Anyways that’s kinda it. Dylan called Ivy Claire because he didn’t want me to be alone when he went home to sleep which was really cute, and then she called you, and then _she_ had to leave so she called Ganj and Lucas, and I think maybe Spencer had work? Unclear. Anyways, then you showed up so you know the rest.” 

Sam hums in response, crumpling up the wrapper from his bagel and attempting to throw it into the little waste paper basket. Attempting being the key word. 

“I’ll pick it up later,” Sam says, taking his hat off and turning his face into the side of Peter’s neck and yawning. Peter reaches up and massages his fingers into Sam’s hair right at the base of his skull, Sam melting into it. He figures it’s safe to lean further into Peter and rest his eyes for a few minutes without actually falling asleep, between the ambient hospital noises and the crinkly paperlike sheets it’s not exactly an ideal nap location. Or he figures that until he’s been gently shaken awake by Peter because he needs to get out of the bed so Peter can go for his ultrasound. 

Not shockingly it’s confirmed appendicitis, and Peter is now stuck playing the waiting game for surgery. 

“How’s your pain on a scale from one to ten,” Sheila, the new nurse on duty asks as she unwraps the cuff from Peter’s arm. 

“Hmmm, maybe like a three?” Peter says, and Sheila nods as she goes over to the whiteboard, frowning a little at the dick drawing before rewriting in her own name and adding ‘Surgery’ in the column marked ‘Daily Goal’ in blue whiteboard marker. 

“Alright, well you can page if you need anything. I’d suggest settling in, I really don’t think they’ll get you into surgery until this evening at the earliest, perhaps even tomorrow morning.” 

Sheila walks off and Sam frowns at Peter. “Dude, next time someone asks give them a higher number.” 

“It’s not that bad right now.” 

“Yeah, but they’re gonna put you on the bottom of the list if you’re saying it’s not that bad.” 

“I don’t really think that’s how it works.” 

“Whatever dude,” Sam says, settling back into his chair. “A fucking three, though? You’re not a Buddhist Monk you don’t have to be all like, stoic and shit.” 

He unlocks his phone, figuring that he should probably get around to answering all the alarmed texts from people about Peter’s rumoured, and now officially confirmed, hospitalization. He gets a few back almost immediately from Ming and Randall Snyder, but surprisingly not from Chloe Lyman, who tends to be one of the most consistent quick repliers Sam has ever encountered. Actually, he doesn’t get texts back from any of the St Bernie’s crew except for Molly Hearst, who sends an entire saga of emojis. Sam feels pretty confident though that her speedy response was mostly due to her very charming and not very well-hidden crush on Peter, so maybe he should cut everyone else some slack. 

Sam can tell Peter’s getting a little bit bored and restless, alternating between three different apps before giving up and half-heartedly flicking through, of all fucking things, the novelization of the _Need for Speed_ movie. 

“That cannot be any good,” Sam says playfully, but Peter just sighs putting the book down on his little tray. 

“Yeah it kinda sucks, it’s not nearly as good as the movie.” 

Sam grins. “I mean when most of the appeal of your film is car chases I imagine the novelization isn't really going to compare.” One of Peter’s most redeeming qualities as a film nerd is that he’s as equally enthusiastic about Oscar bait and indie films as he is about trashy action blockbusters and half forgotten 00s teen movies. 

“I know the wifi’s not good enough to stream anything,” Sam continues, “but we could listen to a podcast.” 

“I have my phone set to remove podcasts after I’ve listen to them,” Peter says miserably. 

“Yes, I know you have this flaw,” Sam says over Peter’s protestation that it’s _not_ a flaw he’s trying to save space, “so I always keep everything on my phone until I manually take them off. You’re welcome.” 

They’re midway through an episode of _My Favorite Murder_ they’ve already listened to before (“Everyone was like ‘my bones, my ricketts,’ She’s like, ‘I’m doing great, I’m from Norway and I’ll kill you for no reason,’” Sam quotes along) when Dylan’s face peeks through the curtain, brightening even more when he spots Sam, tethered to Peter by their earbuds. 

“Hey!” Dylan says, a white box with a large pink sticker balanced in one hand as he reaches out to clasp Sam’s tightly with the other. “Ivy Claire said you were busy with camp shit.” 

“Ahh well, you know, it’s not every day your boyfriend gets appendicitis, wanted to get some pics for the scrapbook,” Sam says, taking the earbud out of his ear and handing it to Peter who winds them around his phone and then sets it on the little side table where Sam’s forgotten tea from that morning has gone stone cold. 

“Aww, cute,” Dylan says. “Ivy Claire wanted to come by but she’s at work ‘til kinda late today, but she made you some get better cupcakes.” Dylan opens the lid of the box with a flourish revealing a dozen identical cupcakes with alternating perfect swirls of blue and green frosting. 

“The blue ones are vanilla and the green ones are _special vanilla_ ,” Dylan says with a wink. 

“Alright, okay,” Sam says, gesturing for the box and moving around stuff so he can fit it onto the side table. “Why don’t we put those over here where they will be safe…” He makes a mental note to google if Peter can have cannabis with his post-op drugs once they have a full list, but it’s very sweet nonetheless and he makes a second mental note to text Ivy Claire his thanks. 

It’s kind of weird, Sam thinks, the way that when he’d first met Ivy Claire, right before the start of senior year about a year ago, the way she and Dylan had seemed to make absolutely no sense. She was this bubbly, sundress-wearing, double-name having, novelty phone case carrying, cupcake business owning 5’2” ball of sugar and spice. And Dylan, was well, Dylan Maxwell. 

But now, almost a year later, the whole thing just seems completely normal. And honestly, if anyone can testify to the fact that relationships are built on more than just superficial similarities it’s Sam and Peter. Ultimately though, Sam’s just happy that Dylan’s happy, and that he has a buddy to chat to when Dylan and Peter want to hang out. 

Also Sam thinks in Ivy Claire he may have met his match when it comes to taking excessive amounts of selfies, and he has to respect that, one selfie addict to another. 

Dylan and Peter are hunched over some video of what Sam thinks is a porcupine doing something cute when he taps Peter softly on the shoulder and says he’s going to go get some dinner. 

Sam checks his phone again as he waits for the elevator, still radio silence from the St. Bernie’s crew, so he’s taken by surprise when the elevator dings and Peter’s mom walks off, looking a little bit frazzled. Which isn’t surprising when you had to rush back from New Mexico because your only child is in hospital, but Mrs. Maldonado generally carries herself with the same coolly detached ease that Peter so often replicates that it just seems _wrong_.

“Oh, Sam!” She exclaims, her jacket thrown over her arm as she pulls Sam into a hug. 

“Hey Mrs. M,” Sam says, holding the hug for a second longer than he normally would, getting the sense that she really needs it. Neither Peter nor his mom are particularly touchy feely people, so the fact that she hugged him at all really says something about her emotional state. 

“You are such an angel,” Mrs. Maldonado says wiping her eyes subtly. “Peter told me you left camp and drove right up.” 

“Of course,” Sam says, and then half-remembers guiltily that he’d practically had to be talked into coming by Jim, but at least he can kind of chalk that up to having just woken up and trying to come up with an appropriate emotional reaction to ‘my boyfriend is in the hospital experiencing a medical emergency.’ 

“You two are so good for each other,” She says. “Were you leaving or…?” 

“No, no, I was just going to grab some dinner,” Sam says, gesturing towards the elevator. 

“Wonderful, good, good,” Mrs. Maldonado says, and Sam can tell her attention is starting to drift from him and back towards her concern for Peter. 

“Anyways, I’ll let you sign in, if you just follow the hall there’s a nurse’s station and they can point you towards Peter’s room.” 

Mrs. Maldonado gives him a distracted smile, squeezing him once on the upper arm before she’s off down the hall, her sensible heeled boots clicking on the linoleum floors. Sam hits the elevator button again, the one Mrs. Maldonado had walked off of having already been called to another floor. 

He tries to take as long as possible eating dinner, so he can give Peter and his mom some space. He sort of half expects Dylan to show up in the cafeteria at some point, but so far it’s just Sam alone with some super under-seasoned chili and a roll so hard it’s giving the scones at Miniwaka a run for their money. 

Speaking of, he texts Emily Hershey asking for a Color War update. Just because he’s not at camp doesn’t mean he’s any less competitive, and he plays Little Alchemy on his phone while he waits for updates. When he absolutely cannot sit in the cafeteria any longer, with its weird uncomfortable chairs and buzzy fluorescent lighting, he decides to go poke around and kill some time aimlessly wandering. This mostly involves spending a stupidly long time in the small sad little gift shop, and he comes pathetically close to buying Peter a little stuffed sheep before talking himself out of it. 

Sam takes a different route back upstairs and ends up on the total opposite end of the floor from where Peter’s room is. There’s a little nook with vending machines and Sam’s pursuing the snack options, more just as a way to kill time than anything else when someone from behind him exclaims, “Sam!?” 

Sam’s not even turned all the way around before Kevin McClain is _right_ there in his personal space, pulling Sam into a hug. 

Which...that can’t be right, can it? Because Kevin McClain is in Washington under house arrest and not in a hospital in Oceanside. 

“Oh my goodness, Sam,” Kevin says, letting him go, and yeah, no that’s definitely Kevin McClain with his _Newsies_ hat and his tea chest tucked under his arm. “I am so glad I found you, we have been fruitless in our quest to find Peter’s room but I just had a _feeling_ about this hallway and here you are!” 

“I— ” Sam starts and then can’t go any further because despite having about twelve questions for Kevin that mostly boil down to, _what are you doing here?_ The thing that manages to stick out is, “Wait, _our_ quest?” 

Kevin doesn’t even have time to answer before Chloe Lyman comes around the corner, holding a comically large balloon arrangement which mostly, but doesn’t quite manage to block out DeMarcus and Jenna following behind her. “Sam! Sam, Sam, Sam!” Chloe says, taking the distance between them at a run and practically jumping into Sam’s arms, as she hugs him, balloons bumping up against the vending machines. 

“See I told you he was on this floor,” Jenna says. 

“I...what?” Sam finally manages, Chloe finally extracting her arms from around his neck. “Uh, sorry not to sound rude, but what the hell are you all doing here?” 

“We saw your post, we wanted to, you know, be here for moral support for Peter,” Chloe says slowly. “Did you not, did you not get texted?” 

She looks over her shoulder at Jenna who shakes her head, “Don’t look at me, I was just in charge of transport. I thought Kevin texted him.” 

“I assumed it would be Chloe given her closer relationship to Sam and Peter.” 

“Well I sure fucking didn’t text anyone,” DeMarcus says, and honestly it would be funny if it weren’t so painfully unfunny to have a bunch of Catholic private school kids you made a documentary about ambush you in a hospital twelve hundred miles away from where they live because your boyfriend has appendicitis. 

“Well, we’re here now,” Jenna says with a shrug. 

“Yeah Jenna hooked it _up_ ,” DeMarcus says. “Private company jet and all that shit.” 

“Oh. My. God,” Sam finally manages out weakly, but it is far far overshadowed by the booming voice of Dylan Maxwell exclaiming from behind him; ” _HO SHIT!_ Team Vandal whaddup!?” 

“Oh dear lord,” Kevin says, and Sam thinks it might be the first time they’ve ever been entirely on the same page. 

It had already been a lot the last time they’d all been in the same place together, which had been in June when Netflix had flown Dylan, Gabi, DeMarcus, Chloe, Jenna, Sam, and Peter to Los Gatos for a promotional photoshoot. Kevin hadn’t been there for obvious house arrest reasons, though Sam’s pretty sure they did end up getting photos of him in the 200 yards around his house. Everyone had been a bit awkward at first, not having much but Sam and Peter in common, though that had quickly become a talking point for Gabi and Chloe, who had spent longer than Sam was really comfortable with swapping tales of the quote ‘shit they had seen.’

Once that first hurdle had been broken it had actually been a pretty fun afternoon; Dylan and DeMarcus had clicked pretty well and had spent their down time perfectly crafting a handshake. It wasn’t that any of it was _bad_ per say, but having all of those personalities in one place had been a lot, and that had just been for one afternoon when no one was experiencing any sort of medical emergencies. 

“What’s up, what’s up, what’s up?” Dylan says, bounding over like an overly enthusiastic puppy, DeMarcus lets out a equally joyful little squawk as the two of them trade their handshake, two false starts before they get it right. “The fuck you guys doing here?” 

“Oh, you know, just in the neighbourhood,” Kevin says sarcastically, drawing Dylan’s attention. 

“Holy shit bro you’re like, out of jail,” Dylan says. 

“Well, I wasn’t in jail— ” Kevin starts but doesn’t finish as Dylan pulls him into a tight bro hug pounding him hard once on the back. Sam winces sympathetically as Kevin blinks a little dazed. 

“We got the complete Team Vandal _set_!” Dylan says enthusiastically. 

Sam feels pretty certain that if he stands there any longer he’s just going to implode from overstimulation. “Cool. I need to use the bathroom,” he says finally, and makes a quick escape. 

In the bathroom Sam braces his hands on the porcelain sides of the sink, taking long deep breaths. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and hates how startled he still looks and tries hard to school his expression into something more closely resembling, he doesn’t even know, surprised gratefulness maybe? 

Because okay sure, on paper a bunch of people who love Peter showing up to support him in his time of need is like, really, really sweet and thoughtful. But in reality it’s just a lot of added stress that Sam, and Peter especially, don’t really need right now. Like Dylan was one thing, Dylan can be a much-needed distraction in times of stress. But the _entire_ squad from St. B’s on top of that? That’s a whole fucking cavalcade of strong personalities. 

Sam lets out another long deep breath, trying to will himself into a more zen state of mind. He counts the joints on his fingers with his thumb, up to twelve and then backwards, the way his mom had taught him to help calm down when he was a kid. He feels a little stupid standing there under the fluorescent lights of the bathroom tapping on his own fingers, but he has to admit that after a few minutes of that he really does feel better.

He’s half-surprised to see Chloe waiting for him when he re-emerges from the bathroom. She’s leaning up against the vending machine with her bouquet of balloons in hand. 

“Hey,” Sam says. 

“It’s a little overwhelming, huh?” Chloe says. 

“A little,” Sam says slowly. 

“I am sorry. That no one texted you,” Chloe says. 

“Nah it’s cool, who needs a functioning heart anyways,” Sam jokes but Chloe just shakes her head at him and pulls him into a long hug and it hits Sam like a brick wall how much he’s missed her. 

“I guess everyone headed to Peter’s room?” Sam says, stepping away. “There’s a two guest limit, they’re going to have to go on a rota or something.” 

“Jenna said something about getting him switched to a private room, I guess her family’s company does a lot of business with hospitals so I wouldn’t be surprised if they let her bend the rules.” 

“Why am I not surprised?” Sam says, and sure enough when they get to the nurses station near Peter’s room they’re informed that he’s being prepared to be moved to another room and that they’re welcome to go wait up on the next floor. She does remind them, however, that the two guest rule still applies, so apparently money can buy a lot of things but not much in the way of getting a nurse to go along with breaking a small bureaucratic rule. And honestly Sam can respect that. 

Even if it means playing the world’s strangest game of musical chairs outside of Peter’s new private room, Mrs. Maldonado firmly planted as a permanent guest of honour while everyone else takes turns going in to see Peter. It’s an interesting social experiment actually, watching the ever shifting dynamic of the group as people enter and exit. It reminds Sam actually of those brain puzzles where you have to try and cross a lake and can’t leave certain combinations of items together. 

Chloe gets along with DeMarcus and Kevin but not Jenna. DeMarcus gets along with Chloe and Dylan and Jenna but not Kevin. Dylan gets along with everyone because he’s Dylan. Or well, actually, more precisely, Dylan _likes_ everyone, but Sam can tell by the increasingly pained look on Kevin’s face as Dylan tries to explain the Wayback Boys’ latest prank video that Kevin is not exactly a fan. 

When Dylan disappears back into Peter’s new room Kevin lets out a long exasperated sigh and says to no one in particular, “Well he certainly is an acquired taste.” 

Sam bites his lip and thinks about pots and kettles but doesn’t actually say anything. 

“Oh my god, _there_ you are!” Ivy Claire says loudly, appearing at the end of the hallway with another white cake box in her hands. “I was downstairs and I was like ‘hi I’m here to see Peter Maldonado’ and the guy was all like, ‘Oh he’s been moved’ but he didn’t know _where_ so I was like, well I guess I’ll just start wandering around and hope for the best and here you are!” She’s been walking and talking so she punctuates the end of her sentence by coming to a stop in front of Sam and shifting her cake box into one hand so she can give him a little side hug, her arm around Sam’s waist as she leans her head onto his shoulder for a second. 

“What’s in the box?” Sam asks. “More cupcakes?” 

Ivy Claire shakes her head. “No they’re actually scones? I’m trying to expand my baking repertoire, especially for the more, you know, conventional orders I get.” 

“Amen to that.” Sam says, and then realizing it’s kind of rude for him to not, he turns back to everyone else. “Hey, sorry guys, this is Ivy Claire, and that’s Chloe, Jenna, DeMarcus and Kevin, you know, from St. Bernadine.” 

“Hey!” Ivy Claire says, giving a little wave, which Chloe, Jenna and DeMarcus return before going back to whatever they were looking at on DeMarcus’ phone, but Kevin fully stands and offers his hand to Ivy Claire. 

“Kevin McClain,” he says, just a little too eager, and Sam has to turn a snort into a fake cough as he realizes that Kevin is lowkey flirting with Dylan Maxwell’s girlfriend. 

“Did I hear you correctly say that you were experimenting with _scones_?” Kevin continues, pronouncing ‘scone’ the British way so it rhymes with bronze. “From my understanding sweet breads involve some of the most advanced techniques in terms of the cake and pastry realm of the culinary world.” 

Ivy Claire bites her lip thoughtfully. “Hmmm well I’m not sure about that.” 

“You have a natural aptitude, perhaps,” Kevin says, and, oh boy Sam needs to burst this bubble right now. 

“Hey Kevin— ” Sam starts, but doesn’t get any farther as Dylan reappears from Peter’s room, phone pressed to his ear. 

“ — _Yeah_ mom,” Dylan says, voice teetering on the edge between placating and put out, “Yeah I’ll do it when I get home,” he puts his phone to his neck, leaning over with practiced ease to kiss Ivy Claire, who leans up on her tiptoes to meet him. Not to sound mean-spirited but Sam would pay actual real cash money for a photo of Kevin’s face the split second before they kiss, the moment he realizes what’s happening. 

No one else seems to have noticed this little domestic tableau, so Sam feels a little bit less like an asshole for finding the whole thing hilarious, Kevin opening his mouth uselessly a few times before shutting it firmly, one side twisted up in judgment.

“Yes, mom,” Dylan says, with a performative exasperated glance at Ivy Claire who settles into his side with a practiced ease. “Yes, _yes_ , I will call you. Yes, bye. Yeah. Good _bye_.” 

Ivy Claire snorts a laugh. “Lookit you Mr. Popular.” 

“Yeah, that’s me,” Dylan says, ducking a kiss to the top of her head. “Oh shit, baby did

you meet Kevin?” 

“Yes, we, yes we have become acquainted,” Kevin says very primly like an actor in a high school production of a British play who’s trying to get the vocal cadence down without doing a full blown accent.” 

“We discussed _scones_ ,” Ivy Claire says, mirroring his earlier pronunciation. 

“Awww hell yeah,” Dylan says. “Oh hey, speaking of, Pete wanted to talk to you.” 

“I’m sorry...how exactly are those two related?” Kevin says. 

“Huh?” 

“How does speaking of scones make you think of Peter wanting to talk to Sam.” 

“Well they’re like, the kind of thing they make on British Bake-Off and shit right? That makes me think of British shit like Austin Powers. And we were watching Austin Powers and getting blazed when Peter told me that he liked Sam the summer after Vandal.” 

“Interesting,” Kevin says. “I’m surprised that you hadn’t put together Peter’s feelings earlier, I’d think they’d be quite obvious.” 

“I don’t really like to assume things about people,” Dylan says sagely. “Like, just cause they’re both gay doesn’t mean that they have to be into each other.” 

Kevin doesn’t have any rebuttal for that and Sam decides this is a good time to excuse himself from the conversation and go see what’s on Peter’s mind. 

Mrs. Maldonado is in the hallway talking to a nurse when Sam ducks into Peter’s new room, which is honestly only about as big as his half in the other room, but there’s no passive aggressive college students so Sam’ll take that as an improvement. 

Peter’s propped up all the way up on pillows, but his head is lolled over onto his shoulder. Sam thinks he might have fallen asleep but Peter snaps his head up and adjusts his glasses when he hears Sam enter the room. 

“What’s up?” Sam says. “Dylan says you wanted to talk to me.” 

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Well, not really. I just. I’m really glad everyone’s here. Like honestly it’s crazy they’d all fly here to see me. it’s really flattering and everything but they’re kind of…” 

“A lot?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, not unkindly in the slightest. “I just, I wanted to be with someone who I didn’t have to, you know, be _on_ in front of, for a minute.” 

Sam sinks into the chair closest to the bed and reaches out for Peter’s hand, Peter giving him a little joking handshake before closing his eyes again and leaning back against the pillows. 

“You know what I want?” Peter says after a long moment. 

“Kurger Bing?” Sam guesses. He can’t remember how or why it started, just that in the summer between eighth and ninth grade they’d decided it was the funniest thing ever to switch the first letters of the names of restaurants. So much so that they’d ended up using Dick Monalds as a portmanteau on more than one of Peter’s early films. It was just one of those dumb inside jokes that had stuck so hard Sam honestly didn’t even think about it anymore. 

“Close,” Peter says, eyes still closed. “Baco Tell.” 

“Ahhh yes, Baco Tell,” Sam says and Peter whines in annoyance. 

“Can we go when I get discharged? I have never wanted CrunchWrap Supreme more in my life. I want a CrunchWrap Supreme and a Baja Blast and a Cheesy Gordita Crunch.” 

“I guess your appetite is coming back then, that’s probably a good sign,” Sam says. 

“I mean, I haven’t eaten in like twenty-four hours,” Peter says. “I think it’s less my appetite returning and more that my stomach has started eating itself.” 

Sam rubs his thumb over the top of Peter’s hand. There’s not really anything comforting to say, it just really fucking sucks. 

“How’s your pain?” Sam says. 

Peter shrugs. “Kinda the same. Like it hurts, but….It feels like it should maybe hurt more like, okay this is kind of dumb and angsty and self indulgent but like, people used to die from this literally all the time. I mean they still do sometimes…” he trails off and then looks a bit embarrassed. 

“Whatever, sorry,” Peter says giving his head a little shake. “I’m still kind of like,” he makes a vague sort of grappling gesture, fingers spread wide like he’s trying to physically grab hold of his thoughts. 

“It’s okay,” Sam says. 

“I just think maybe,” Peter says. “The thing I need the most right now is just to get to be alone with my thoughts for a little while.” 

“Like send everyone away?” 

“Yeah, like, kinda,” Peter says awkwardly. “I mean visiting hours end pretty soon anyways, maybe you could take everyone to see the beach or something?” 

Part of Sam wants so badly to push the issue, to point out that everyone is literally here to see _Peter_ , not him and that if he’d wanted to have to keep a group of teenagers entertained he could have just stayed at Miniwaka. But Peter looks so exhausted and guilty that Sam would be an absolute and total asshole to do anything but agree. 

“Yeah, okay,” Sam says. “I can get everyone out of your hair.” 

“You’re the best,” Peter says sweetly, squeezing Sam’s hand. 

“Yeah I’m a fucking hero,” Sam says, standing and leaning over to give Peter a kiss on the temple. “Keep me updated though?” 

“‘Course.” 

Sam hovers for a second, half-heartedly hoping that Peter might ask him to stay after all, but Peter just kisses the back of Sam’s hand once before letting go. “You’re my hero.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam says. “Save it for your Emmy acceptance speech.” 

Peter grins, shaking his head bemusedly before settling deeper into his pillows and closing his eyes. 

Sam bumps into Mrs. Maldonado outside of Peter’s room, giving her the short version that Peter’s tired and Sam’s going to get the visiting horde out of their hair so he can rest. Sam keeps Peter’s weird turn into the existential out of it since that feels kind of private, even if he thinks Peter is being a bit, well, melodramatic. 

“I’ll text you if we need anything, and as soon as we have a surgery time you’ll be the first to know,” Mrs. Maldonado says, giving him an affectionately maternal pat on the arm. “Oh also, don’t forget these.” She hands him the white bakery box of cupcakes, and even though Sam knows she has no clue what the special ingredient is in half of them he feels a cold tingle of embarrassed guilt as he accepts them. 

“Thanks Mrs. M. I’d better go round up the troops,” Sam says, mostly just for show because they’re all literally sitting about five feet away and he’s pretty sure at least someone heard part of that conversation. 

He’s immediately proven right when Jenna says, “It’s kind of weird that you call your boyfriend’s mom by her last name.” 

Sam turns around. “It’s way weirder to call her the name of my best friend.” 

“Peter?” 

“No dude, her first name is Gabby. Like my best friend, Gabi? It’s weird.” 

Jenna just shrugs, and pulls up something on her phone. “Whatever. So we’re going back to the hotel or something?” 

“Yeah I mean if that’s...like we could go to the beach or go see a movie or something if people want to,” Sam says. “Or there’s like, mini-golf. Laser tag.” 

“Or if you wanna do something a little more lowkey,” Ivy Claire says. “We do have all those cupcakes that Peter can’t eat right now…” 

“Those are Peter’s!” Sam protests. 

“I think he’d want us to have fun!” Ivy Claire says. “Here, let me text him.” 

“Wait, what are we doing?” Chloe says, coming over closer to their huddle. “‘Cause I vote for whatever option involves food.” 

“Yo, same,” DeMarcus says, throwing an arm over her shoulder. 

“I am also quite peckish if I’m being honest,” Kevin says, which just why dude, why. 

“I mean, hello, room service,” Jenna points out. “I vote edibles and hotel, I didn’t really bring ‘going out’ outfits,” she says with complete sincerity as if she is not currently the most put-together looking of all of them in at least five hundred dollars of designer clothes. 

“Cool, hotel it is,” Sam says, happy to not have to think about it to much. 

Or he is until he follows Jenna’s rental car into the parking lot of the Hilton...where his brother works. Great. 

“You okay dude?” DeMarcus asks, and Sam realizes how much tension he’s holding in his face and shoulders, forcing himself to relax as he pulls into a parking spot.

DeMarcus had insisted on driving with him when Chloe had called shotgun in the hospital parking lot, complaining that his legs were too long to sit in the back. Which Sam thinks is at least kind of bullshit given that Jenna had rented some huge luxury sport crossover which probably has more leg room in the back than Sam’s car has in the front. But Sam likes DeMarcus, and he’s a constant stream of upbeat observations and St. Bernadine’s gossip which is exactly the kind of brain candy Sam needs right now. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” Sam says, a little bit too belated to be believable, so he’s not surprised when DeMarcus claps him on the shoulder. Sam’s brain splutters like a car engine that can’t quite turn over, and he is suddenly quite viscerally reminded of the fact that while he wouldn’t say he has a ‘crush’ on DeMarcus broadly speaking, he sure does find him incredibly attractive and that he spent a good part of their Bellevue shoot not being able to put together a cohesive string of words in front of him. He was just so _charming_ in a way that made you want to be a part of whatever team he was on, even if you’re supposed to be being a totally objective investigative journalist. 

“Hey, so I know you’re all stressed about shit and whatever, so I promise you don’t gotta worry about like, keeping everyone entertained or whatever. We get it, we’re all just good to chill. And I got your back Sam. Sammy-Slamma-Jamma.” 

Sam blinks. “...Did you just quote High School Musical at me?” 

“Oh fuck, I dunno,” DeMarcus says. “That’s what my sisters call my little cousin Sam so maybe?” 

“I’m pretty sure it is,” Sam says unbuckling his seatbelt. 

“I never really got that into it,” DeMarcus says. “Even though you might think I would have cause of the basketball stuff, but I did really like...what’s that movie where they’re all like dirty kids and Batman is there and they dance a bunch?” 

“Uh, Newsies?” Sam supplies as DeMarcus pulls his duffel bag out of the back of his car. 

“Yeah! That was the _shit_!” DeMarcus grins. “Also the Cheetah Girls? Classic.” 

He starts singing a song that sounds vaguely familiar under his breath as they make their way across the parking lot. Jenna’s already at the front desk getting checked in while Chloe and Kevin stand off to the side with their luggage. Dylan and Ivy Claire are still coming but Dylan had needed to swing home first so Sam’s not totally sure when they’re going to show up. 

“Oh my god you look like you’re gonna pass out, c’mere,” Chloe says, opening her arms and gesturing for him until Sam comes and dutifully leans against her. 

“Honestly if you guys are getting sit down food I might just go nap,” Sam says. “I got up at six this morning and it’s just been a rollercoaster from there.” 

He doesn’t mention the fact that he’d also rather not bump into his brother right now. Colin has a weird tendency to make everything about him and his life, which Sam supposes is like, kinda nice in theory, but it was kind of exhausting sometimes. Like when Sam had been stressing about how to come out to their parents and Colin had kept trying to make him feel better by comparing it to when he had to tell their parents that he was transferring out of a sociology program and into culinary school. 

Somehow because Sam’s thinking about Colin he doesn’t register for a long few seconds that Colin has walked into the lobby, still wearing his white chef’s jacket, which means he’s probably going outside to vape on his break. 

Sam straightens up, pulling himself out of Chloe’s embrace as Colin spots him, eyebrows creasing. “Uh, hi Sam,” Colin says. 

“Hey Colin— ” Sam starts but doesn’t get any further as Colin encroaches. 

“What— Why— What— ?” Colin splutters waving a vague arm at Sam and his little teen posse. “Why aren’t you at camp!?” Colin finally manages to get out, and then doesn’t stop even as Sam opens his mouth to explain. “Oh my god, are you playing _hooky_!? From your job!” 

“Colin— ” Sam finally manages to get in, but Colin’s already off on another tangent. 

“See, see this is _exactly_ what happens cause you’re the baby and mom and dad got all lenient with you, even after you almost got _expelled_ for your dick movie and now you’re what? Just ditching your actual real life job at Miniwaka to hang out with some friends!?” Colin waves a hand at him and then scoffs, running his fingers through his hair. “Seriously, are you not gonna say anything?” 

“Peter’s in the hospital,” Sam says finally, deciding to jump to the end because anything else will probably set Colin off on another tangent.

“What?”

“Yeah he got appendicitis, he has to have surgery. My boss gave me some time off so I could be here with him.” 

Chloe coughs beside him and Sam takes the hint that he’s making the rest of them uncomfortable with this little family drama, so he takes a step towards Colin, grabbing him by the arm and bringing him away from everyone else near one of the lobby’s many tasteful potted ferns. 

“If Peter’s in the hospital why are you _here_?” Colin says before Sam has even let go of his arm, but he’s significantly less agitated than before, so that’s a good sign. 

“‘Cause a bunch of people from the new doc are insanely loaded, like private jet loaded, and flew down to come see Peter because he just brings that shit out in people, you know what he’s like. And I guess this is where they’re staying and we’re here now because Pete was tired and wanted to sleep cause he’s having an _organ_ removed first thing in the morning.” 

Colin doesn’t say anything for a long second, and then, abruptly, pulls Sam into his arms. “Oh Sammy,” Colin says. “That’s really fucking scary.” 

“Yeah,” Sam says into the white fabric of Colin’s coat. He smells like oil and steak and Sam brings his arms up to hug Colin back for a second before stepping away. “Also, for the record, I only got suspended for Vandal, I didn’t almost get expelled.” 

“That’s not what Lindsay said,” Colin says. 

“Lindsay’s full of shit,” Sam says, ducking as Colin goes to ruffle his hair. “Plus Lindsay wasn’t even _home_ when that was happening, check your sources.” 

“Hey, you know,” Colin says, ignoring Sam and swinging back into older brother mode, “if you guys want I can probably swing you a sick deal if you wanna get food.” 

“Dude, did you not listen when I said insanely loaded, these are not kids who need a free dinner.” 

“I never said _free_ ,” Colin points out, checking his watch. “Shit, I gotta get back to the kitchen. But like if you need a ride to the hospital or, or, I don’t know, just anything, you can call me. You know that right?” 

Sam resists the temptation to roll his eyes given that Colin is very legitimately trying to be nice, so he just shrugs and lets Colin clap him on the shoulder. “Okay, I gotta run. I’ll text you okay? And tell Pete I said feel better.” 

“Uh, hey what the fuck was that?” Jenna says immediately when Sam returns to their little huddle of luggage. 

“That’s my brother, he works here, don’t worry about it,” Sam says waving a hand. “I know people want food but can we please do room service?” 

“Yes let’s,” Kevin says. “Chloe is quite possibly the slowest eater in the western hemisphere and I’d rather not spend our entire evening waiting for her to finish.” 

“Rude!” She smacks him on the arm. 

“Alright, that’s fine,” Jenna says, handing her over-the-shoulder bag to Sam and leading the pack of them to the elevator, wheelie suitcase trailing behind her. She leads all of them up to the tenth floor and into a hotel suite that makes the Netflix funded one Sam and Peter had spent the last week in look like a cardboard box on the side of the highway. It’s a long few minutes of poking around and getting people settled (Jenna and DeMarcus in one room, Chloe and Kevin in the other) before they’re ready to order room service. 

Sam feels a bit detached from the whole thing as Chloe dutifully reads their list of orders off of a pad of hotel stationary. He’d technically already had dinner before everyone had shown up, but that had been hours ago and he’s hungry enough that he had put in an order for a twice baked potato and some garlic green beans. 

“Hey, did someone text Dylan?” DeMarcus says when Chloe’s off the phone. “You know since no one texted Sam and shit? Maybe we shouldn’t do that again.” 

“Yeah, I got it,” Sam says getting up from the couch. He takes a picture of the suite number for Dylan, and even though it only takes him about forty-five seconds, when he steps back into the room someone has busted out a deck of Cards Against Humanity and they’re setting up a game. 

“Sam, you in?” DeMarcus says, as Sam perches himself on the arm of one of the couches. 

“Nah, I think I’ll just watch this round.” 

“Yeah, suit yourself,” DeMarcus says, shuffling. 

Dylan and Ivy Claire arrive before the food, midway through their second game of Cards Against Humanity. Jenna had won the first round in a surprising landslide. Sam would have originally put his money on Chloe, figuring she’d have the advantage of her long-term friendship with Kevin and her ability to blend pretty well into different social situations, but Jenna ended the game looking smug with her little pile of black cards. 

“I brought _treeeeaaats_ ,” Ivy Claire sing-songs, holding up not just the white box from earlier, but another light blue box. “So I did text Peter and he _did_ say we could have some of his cupcakes since he can’t eat them right now, but I also brought some brownies cause you gotta respect the classics.” 

“Yeah, you gotta respect the classics,” Dylan says, parroting her playfully, and Ivy Claire sticks her tongue out at him, setting her boxes on one of the tasteful side tables. 

“For the cupcakes, the blue ones are just regular and then the green are edibles, obviously, and just all of the brownies are too. Standard procedure, eat one, see how you feel in an hour,” Ivy Claire says with a hand wave. “Did you guys eat first?” 

“We’re still waiting on food,” Jenna says. “Room service.”

“Okay, start with these then or it’ll take a million years to hit,” Ivy Claire says, untying the perfectly artisan twine around the boxes and setting them on the coffee table. Dylan immediately takes both a cupcake and a brownie, earning him a frown from Kevin who he’d wedged himself in beside. 

“You’re starting with two?” 

“Dude,” Dylan says, giving Kevin a pointed look. “Not my first fucking rodeo.” He shoves the entire mini cupcake into his mouth in one bite in a move about as passive aggressive as Dylan Maxwell gets. 

There’s a knock on the door and Sam drags himself up to answer it, figuring that if Colin decided he really needed to be an Involved Older Brother ™ and bring the food up himself then he should probably be the one to run interference in the face of a bunch of minors consuming edibles. It’s not Colin though, which is a blessing, but it sure is Daniel, aka his very probable future brother-in-law. So it’s better than his literal brother, but Sam really wishes he could just deal with some anonymous rando right now. 

“Hey,” Daniel says. “Am I good to bring this in?” 

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Sam says, and stands aside so Daniel can push the cart into the room, standing off to the side as he unloads an entire parade of covered dishes onto the marble topped island of the suite’s kitchenette. 

“Is this being charged to the room?” Daniel asks

“Here, I got it Jenna,” Chloe says, jumping to her feet and pulling out her wallet out, and Daniel pulls out one of those portable card readers. Sam knows that he’s grown up pretty lucky and privileged, but it still boggles his mind that someone could just drop easily over two hundred dollars onto their credit card and not even flinch. Sam still debates if he should spring for guac when he goes to Chipotle. 

Daniel gives him a little sympathetic pat on the arm on his way out of the room, which means he’s definitely heard the news from Colin or Lindsay or Gabi or some combination thereof. But he doesn’t try and engage Sam in any sort of heartfelt conversation about it, so Sam counts that as a win. 

“Do you know everyone who works here?” Jenna asks, pulling silverware out of a drawer. 

“Nope, that’s both of them.” 

“Hey that’s your girl’s brother right?” Dylan asks. “What’s her name? The cute one? Gabi?” 

“Yeah that’s her brother,” Sam says. “He’s also dating my sister, so. That’s a whole, multilayered...thing.” 

“Poor baby,” Jenna says, but she doesn’t quite manage to cover up the genuine sympathy in her voice with sarcasm. 

“Sam don’t take this the wrong way, but you kinda look like shit, man,” DeMarcus says, “If you wanna snooze for a bit you can use my bed.” 

Sam checks his watch, and it sure is already nine thirty. On the one hand it feels extremely dumb to go to have a nap only a few hours before he usually goes to bed, on the other hand Dylan sure has pulled a bottle of vodka from somewhere so Sam figures even if he sleeps for a while this makeshift party will still be going. 

“Yeah, yeah, actually I think I will,” Sam says, and sorts through the remaining plates on the counter, finding his and sticking the whole covered thing in the fridge for later. 

He checks his phone to see if Peter had texted him, but there’s nothing new. Sam looks longingly at the sticker he’d sent Peter, a turtle in heart shaped sunglasses. A remnant of a simpler time. 

He doesn’t even get DeMarcus’ stuff off of the bed, flopping down beside his duffel bag as soon as he has his shoes off. He can still hear people talking through the french doors and he drifts on the surface of sleep for a long while before finally sinking right to the bottom. 

Sam wakes up in several abrupt levels as someone shakes him out of a deep sleep. The first thing that occurs to his conscious mind is that he’s kind of sweaty, so gross, thanks body. The second thing is that Kevin McClain is _very_ close to his face. 

“Sam?” Kevin says, as Sam blinks and groans, batting his hands away and half rolling into DeMarcus’ duffel bag. 

“Fuck,” Sam says, sitting up. “What time is it?” 

“Almost one?” Kevin says. 

“Oh shit, does DeMarcus want his bed?” Sam says, yawning and stretching his arms over his head. “I can clear out.” 

“Um, well, actually,” Kevin says. “We actually have a bit of a problem. Chloe she uhhhh, indulged a bit too much and we’re all too…” Kevin waves his hand for a second searching for something before giving up and saying about as bluntly as Sam has ever heard Kevin say anything, “We’re all too stoned or drunk or both to really help her.” 

Sam sits up. “Help her how? Is she okay?” 

“She’s kind of...just um,” Kevin puts his hands by his mouth and then sort of jazz hands them away in the semi-universal sign for vomiting. 

“Ahh shit,” Sam says. “Wait, you said everyone was drunk or high? Aren’t you like, Straight Edge?” 

He’s not trying to say it in a judgey way, cause Sam’s totally not one of those assholes who cares if people aren’t into drinking or whatever. But Kevin had been a bit preachy about it a couple of times when they’d been in Bellevue, like he was so much better than the plebs because he Got High On Life or whatever. 

“I’ve been dabbling in substances, but my tolerance isn’t exactly the highest,” Kevin says. Which would be almost impressively put-together for someone Sam is quickly realizing is actually pretty tipsy if he didn’t almost immediately lose his balance trying to get out of the way as Sam gets up and heads back into the main lounge area of the suite. 

DeMarcus and Jenna are on one couch, playing cat’s cradle with what looks suspiciously like a shoestring and Ivy Claire is quite literally lying on top of Dylan on the other couch. 

“Saaammmmy,” DeMarcus says when he spots Sam, head lolling over the back of the couch. “Good sleep?” 

“The greatest,” Sam says, flashing a lackluster set of thumbs up.

“Oh wait, wait, wait,” Ivy Claire says, half sliding half falling off of Dylan, “I have a scrunchie.” Once she rights herself she pulls a minty green fuzzy scrunchie out of her hair and hands it to Sam. 

“Um, thanks?” 

“It’s for Chloe, so she doesn’t get chunks in her hair.” 

“I’m sure she’ll really appreciate it,” Sam says, and Ivy Claire reaches up and pats him twice on the cheek. He follows Kevin across the main part of the suite and into the identical double queen bedroom on the other side. 

Kevin knocks on the bathroom door to the tune of ‘Shave and a haircut’ and Chloe gives the saddest double knock back that Sam’s ever heard. 

“Hey, I brought Sam. He’s sober. Sam the Sober. Great DND character name,” Kevin muses. 

“Dude…” Sam says, and then side steps him, pushing the bathroom door open. 

Chloe is lying on the floor, curled up on her side in the space between the bathtub and the toilet. 

“Hey kiddo,” Sam says. “I heard you overdid it.” 

Chloe sniffles and rubs her nose. “I mixed up the cupcakes.” 

“Oh shit.” 

She starts to push herself into a sitting position. “Yeah I had one blue one and I wasn’t feeling it, so I was like, oh okay well while I wait I’m gonna have some of the non-pot cupcakes. Which were actually the very-much-pot cupcakes.” 

“How many did you eat?” 

“Three.” 

“Oh my god, dude,” Sam says. 

“I wasn’t trying to— ” Chloe starts, and then starts gagging. 

“Alright, okay, just aim, here I got your hair,” Sam says, scrambling behind her as Chloe retches into the toilet. He manages to get most of her hair into what might be the messiest bun known to man, but it’s out of her face at least. 

Sam settles himself on the side of the bathtub, rubbing Chloe’s back for a long few minutes as she takes deep breaths, gagging a few times but not actually throwing up. When the wave passes she settles herself back on the ground, a few long strands of her hair escaping from the bun at the back. 

“Sorry you got dragged into this. Kevin’s not that drunk, but he’s really drunk for _him_ you know?” 

“Mhmmm.” 

“Ivy Clara says it’s not a weird reaction or anything.” 

“It’s Ivy Claire.” 

“Are you sure? I feel like it’s Ivy Clara.” 

“I’m sure.” 

“Huh,” Chloe says, pillowing her head in her arms and closing her eyes. “Okay.” 

“You’re fucking stoned.” 

“I’m…” Chloe says , and then pauses for such a long time that Sam thinks she might have fallen asleep, “I’m experiencing an extended metaphor.” 

“A metaphor huh? _Wherefore sweetheart what’s your metaphor_?” Sam says in a half passable old timey radio host voice. 

“Hmmm?” 

“It’s from Twelfth Night….don’t worry about it.” 

Chloe’s quiet for another long few minutes, breathing deeply and evenly, but she cracks a (very bloodshot) eye open every once and awhile, as if her object permanence is failing and she expects Sam to have magically vanished from his perch on the bathtub. 

“Do you wanna go to bed?” Sam asks.

“No. I’m gonna puke one more time,” Chloe says.

“What are you, the puke psychic?” 

“American Vandal season three.” 

“Ha.” 

“I can just tell though,” Chloe says, and then almost immediately shudders and gags, Sam helping her sit up just in time for her to vomit into the toilet. She’s a little more steady by the time she’s done so Sam grabs some tissues and pours some mouthwash into a little paper cup as she flushes and leans back against the ledge of the tub. 

“I’m never eating anything blue ever again,” Chloe says, accepting the tissue Sam hands her and wiping off her face. 

“Don’t gargle just swish,” Sam says handing her the paper cup, and she dutifully does so, spitting the mouthwash into the toilet which isn’t exactly what Sam would have suggested but whatever. 

“You ready to try and stand on two legs, Bambi?” Sam says, holding out his hands for Chloe to grasp, doing most of the work to get her off the floor. He pauses for a long second, half to let Chloe regain her balance, and half because he’s not totally confident she’s not going to puke again. But she manages to keep it together on both counts. 

Sam leaves her up against the wall of the hotel room for a minute, putting her suitcase on the floor and putting a cup of water on the side table and the trash can right by the bed before turning down the duvet. 

“You’re so good at this,” Chloe says. 

“Yeah older siblings are good for something after all,” Sam says. He’s never really had Lindsay or Colin take care of him in person, but he still remembers the morning after him and Peter didn’t go to Rachel Balducci’s party but instead stayed up all night drinking white wine that tasted like peach rings and Sam told Peter he was ninety-five percent sure he was gay and he woke up with the worst hangover ever. He’d expected mostly mockery from the sibling group chat, but Lindsay and Colin had talked him through not feeling like he was actively dying. And neither of them had ratted him out to their parents, even if he was pretty sure neither of them bought his migraine excuse. 

Chloe snorts. “You haven’t met mine.” 

“Yeah I have,” Sam says. He’d suffered through the world’s most awkward dinner as him and Peter had tried to explain to Chloe’s much older brother and sister what the documentary was about in a way that wasn’t too gross for polite dinner conversation. Needless to say, they hadn’t really hit it off. 

“Oh fuck, yeah,” Chloe says, hiding her hands in her face. “I’m really fucking high right now. It’s not my fault.” 

“Alright,” Sam says, patting the mattress. “Time for bed.” 

“Wait no,” Chloe says, and then shoves her hands up under her sweatshirt, Sam looking away out of politeness until she pulls her bra out of her sleeve like a magician and flings it vaguely in the direction of where Sam had put her suitcase. 

“I wish I could call Tanner,” Chloe says as Sam pulls the covers over her. 

“He might still be awake, it’s not _that_ late.” 

“No, it’s not— I can’t because if I call him I’m gonna tell him I love him because I love him but we haven’t _said_ it yet and I don’t know if _he’s_ ready and then I’ll be the person who said I love you for the first time after doing a fuck ton of edibles and no one wants to be that person,” Chloe says, sitting up against her pillows for this little tirade and then flopping back down. 

“Yeah, maybe tell him in the morning. Or when you’re home. In person is better, I think.” 

“Yeah,” Chloe says, rolling onto her side. “I love his little puppy dog face. He’s like that dog that Mary Kate and Ashley had who helped them solve mysteries. Maybe you and Peter should get a dog?” 

Sam snorts, and he could probably think of a pretty good retort for that, but Chloe’s eyes are already closed and her face is so relaxed that if she’s not already sleep she will be very, very soon. 

Everyone else is still pretty lethargic in the living room as Sam goes to the kitchenette to reheat his food from earlier. It would have been better hot, but it’s not half bad and he scrolls through his facebook feed aimlessly while he eats until Jenna gets his attention. 

“Hey Sam,” Jenna says, “what’s the deal with your brother?” 

“Uh, he works here at the restaurant and he has a complex about being the oldest.” 

“No I mean like,” Jenna makes a vague gesture at her own face, “he’s

like….and you’re like…” she vaguely gestures over at Sam. 

“Oh _that_ ,” Sam says. He always forgets that of the three of them, Colin looks the most ~Racially Ambiguous~ and that people tend to look at the two of them together kind of oddly. “So Colin looks just like my dad, and my dad is half-Japanese. But my mom is like, Scottish and Polish and I look like her. So that’s why he looks like he could be on the cover of Vaguely Asian Magazine and I’m like, very white.” 

Kevin sits up from where he had been lying on the floor. “Wait, I’m sorry, are you telling me that you are, in fact, a quarter Japanese.” 

“Uh, yeah,” Sam says, spearing a green bean on his fork. 

“And you didn’t _tell_ me before I spent forty-five minutes going over authentic Japanese tea brewing techniques!” Kevin says, going very red in the face. 

“Ummm…” Sam says, trying to figure out a way to say ‘I let you keep going because I wanted to make fun of you later’ that doesn’t make him sound like the meanest person in the world. 

“Fuck!” Kevin says, lying back down, DeMarcus snorting out a laugh and then schooling his expression into something more neutral, a hand over his face. 

“No, sorry, it’s not funny. It’s not funny.” 

“It’s kinda funny…” Jenna says. 

“Vaguely Asian Magazine…” Ivy Claire says and then giggles. “That’s funny, I’m using that.” 

“I totally stole it from a super old SNL episode,” Sam says, shoving his plate in the sink. “It’s like a family meme. Also ‘Are you some kinda...ethnic?’ which her freshman year roommate _did_ say to my sister Lindsay when our dad picked her up for Winter break.” 

“Yikes!” Jenna says, without a trace of irony. Sam’s not really listening anymore though because his phone has started lighting up with a flurry of messages from Peter.

_I can’t stop thinking about which movies people probably die from appendicitis from all the time in_

_Like I’d definitely have died in There Will Be Blood_

_Or like Gangs of New York_

_Hey_ , Sam texts back, _its late you should be sleeping._

_Oh. Hi. Didn’t think you’d be awake. The nurse just came in to check my vitals and I can’t fall back asleep._

_Also my surgery is booked for 8:30 am._

_Oh also Newsies_

_Like if you were a newsie and you got appendicitis you’d just die_

_Cause they were poor_

_Shit_

Sam hesitates for a long second, debating if he wants to tell Peter about Chloe and the cupcakes and everything, but decides that’s probably not what Peter needs to hear right now. _I dont think anyone would die in newsies for the record._

_Cause like….disney._

_Oh true_ , Peter says. 

_You should sleep baby_

_I know_ , Peter texts back almost immediately. 

_Everythings gonna be okay_ , Sam types out, finger hovering over send for a long second before he thinks better of it and deletes it. He tries again, typing, _The faster you fall asleep the quicker you can get baco tell_. 

Peter texts back a heart eyes emoji and Sam exhales softly through his nose, more in relief than amusement. 

_Yeha you’re right_

 _Yeah*_ , Peter immediately corrects himself, like he really thinks Sam might mistake his affirmation for Peter dipping into misspelled cowboy slang and Sam’s heart grows three sizes. 

_Also not to be morbid but I did email Netflix about you getting final editing veto if anything happens_

 _Dont worry i will take care of ur baby_ , Sam says. 

_I’m going to sleep._

_Smart._

_I’ll be right there tomorrow when you wake up._

_Good,_ Peter says, and then sends a single x. Sealed with a kiss. 

“Hey, everything okay with Pete?” Dylan says, Sam’s head snapping up from his phone screen to look over at Dylan who is no longer entirely horizontal, looking concerned. 

“Yeah, no, he’s okay,” Sam says with a shrug. “Got his surgery booked for first thing tomorrow.” 

Dylan nods and rubs a tired hand over his face. “Baby you ready to go?” 

“Wait, shit, no dude you can’t drive,” Sam says. “I can drive you home.” 

“Oh no worries,” Dylan says, stretching as he stands, his shirt valiantly straining to retain it’s French tuck (Dylan had become mildly obsessed with Queer Eye when it had launched in the winter and was always trying to get Sam and Peter to tug on their Netflix connections so he could meet the Fab Five). “Jenna got us a room.” 

Jenna throws up a thumbs up from behind the back of the other couch. 

“Cool,” Sam says, mostly to himself, Dylan half-heartedly fixing the cushions on the couch as Ivy Claire closes up the pastry boxes on the desk, but leaves them where they are. Not that Sam really needs that many more edibles, but it’s a nice gesture. 

“Thanks for having us over,” Ivy Claire says, still softened and smiley on her high, letting out a happy squeal as Dylan literally sweeps her off her feet and into his arms bridal style. 

“Yeah, go Team Vandal!” Dylan says and then looks at the closed door for a long second, “Ummmm…” 

“I got it,” Kevin says, put out, pulling the door open. Ivy Claire giving a fluttery little wave over Dylan’s shoulder before the door shuts behind him. 

“How the actual hell does someone like _that_ get a girl like _her_ ,” Kevin says exasperatedly. Sam knows he’s being rhetorical but his simmering frustration from the day is starting to boil over. 

“Maybe because they have a bunch of shared interests and he listens to her and he loves her and he treats her like a princess,” Sam snaps back, shoving himself off of the counter in the kitchenette. 

Jenna turns and looks at him over the back of the couch. “Someone’s grumpy. Why are you still sober?” 

“I have to drive home,” Sam says, crossing his arms over his chest. “And I have to be there in the morning for Peter.” 

“Awww he’s worried about Peter,” DeMarcus says. “They’re in _love_.” 

“Adorable,” Jenna says with a smirk. 

“See, that’s the thing, I’m not even worried about the surgery, he’s the one being all stressy about it. He’s like texting me about all the movies he likes that he would have died of appendicitis in and writing his will. And I’m trying to be nice but it’s like, earth to Peter this is a super minor routine surgery.” 

“Well true,” Kevin says, “but more people die from minor surgery than you might expect. Obviously some from errors during the procedure, and post-op infection is obviously a factor. But actually most people from improper dosage of the anesthetics. They just never wake up.” 

Kevin says it lightly, like a fun factoid Sam would _want_ to hear. It takes a long moment for the cold prickling rage and resentment to work it’s way through Sam’s whole body, too flabbergasted to even be offended for a long moment. But then it crests like a wave and Sam’s body is moving before he’s even thought about moving. There’s not a lot of stuff for him to grab, just his 24 Stop hat and his car keys from one of the side tables. 

“Yeah I think that’s about time for me to head home,” Sam says cooly. 

“Noooo, boo,” Jenna says, trying and failing twice to get up off the couch. 

“Yeah, no, it’s time,” Sam says. “I’ll see you guys later.” 

“Awww yeah go be with your boy,” DeMarcus says, clearly still out of it enough not to have fully clued in that Sam isn’t going back to the hospital. He turns back to Jenna. “Oh my god, remember that time we both were fake online dating the same fucking girl. And she turned out to be fucking fake. And then it turned out to be fucking _Grayson Wentz_! And Kevin dated her too!?” 

They’re both still high enough that this is apparently peak comedy, and they’re bursting into peals of laughter as Sam pulls the door shut behind him. 

He’s in the elevator by the time he realizes he forgot his food in the fridge, but there’s no way in hell he’s going back upstairs, so he just counts it as a loss, clenching and unclenching his keys in his hand as the elevator ticks down to the ground floor. 

He’s already halfway across the lobby, giving a friendly nod to the late night desk manager, when the other elevator dings and Kevin McClain is yelling, “Sam wait!” from behind him. 

For a half second Sam envisions himself just ignoring Kevin and walking out into the parking lot. Cause like, seriously, what is Kevin McClain going to do about it? But Peter’s spirit of empathy must touch him for a second because Sam sighs and turns around. 

“Hey,” Kevin says, dodging a quick glance at the desk manager as he crosses the lobby towards Sam. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” 

“Yeah sure, what’s up,” Sam says, trying to keep his voice even. 

“Look I— ” Kevin starts, sighing and licking his lips, “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what possibly compelled me to do that. It was shitty and inconsiderate and just tasteless. I am sure that Peter is going to be fine and I’m just, I’m really sorry Sam. Truly.” 

“Alright,” Sam says. “Thank you.” 

“And also, I just wanted to say— Look, it’s like….” Kevin churns the air with his hand for a second while he thinks. “Peter loves you _so_ much,” he finally settles on. “And I am not above admitting that I have always been envious of that. Not that _Peter_ loves you, but that you have found and maintained this love and this relationship. When I first met you that was right after everything with Brooke, and I just, I was so angry with myself because I would look at you and Peter and how much you loved each other, and the way you love each other, and I would think to myself, how could I have possibly thought that what happened between me and Brooke was love?” 

He laughs humorlessly, “And I’m not trying to be...I’m not trying to be like this but I’ll see you and Peter or Dylan and his girlfriend or Chloe and Tanner and I just get so _scared_ — and I know it’s not an excuse and it doesn’t make it okay —but I just get so fucking scared that that kind of love just doesn’t exist for me.” 

Sam exhales. “Well step one I’d say maybe when people are worried about someone who is sick don’t go quoting death rates to them.” 

Kevin snorts. “Okay noted.” 

“Look, I don’t know dude,” Sam says with a shrug. “Life is weird and messy and complicated but I don’t think not having found true love at seventeen is some sign that there’s anything wrong with you. And not in a patronizing ‘you’re so young way’ but like. I don’t know dude, don’t you think that maybe it’s hard to find love when you don’t even really know who you are yet?” 

“Are you telling me you know who you are?” Kevin says skeptically, and on any other day that’s the kind of comment that would probably leave Sam silently fuming. 

“Fuck no,” Sam says. “But Peter did. He just sees people. Like, really sees them. And he saw me and he loved me. And I hope that happens for you, Kevin, I really hope it does.” 

Kevin sighs. “Yeah, me too.” 

“But like, c’mon dude you’re seventeen, you just got off house arrest and you’re about to be the star of a Netflix docuseries. The world is your oyster. Stop selling yourself so short.” 

“The vodka was maybe a bad choice,” Kevin admits and Sam claps him on the shoulder. 

“This is some real nice emotional bonding, but I’m gonna be real with you dude, I’m so fucking tired I think if I put off driving home any longer it’s just not going to happen.” 

“Yeah, it’s okay, you go home,” Kevin says, and then lingers for a weird half second. 

Sam rolls his eyes. “I know you want a hug, c’mere, bring it in, let's do it.” 

It’s lowkey kind of painful, Kevin squeezing him too hard around the ribs, but Sam lets him. He might not ever really get Kevin McClain, but maybe they can find some kind of common language through Peter. 

“Alright,” Kevin says, taking a step back. “Get home safe. Uh, text me when you get home?” 

“I’m straight up not going to remember to do that,” Sam says shooting Kevin a set of finger guns and walking out the automatic doors into the still warm summer air. 

Sam’s still fully dressed when he wakes up at seven thirty, and he honestly doesn’t really remember driving home. Which is a bit scary, but his car is in the driveway looking generally unscathed when Sam comes upstairs. He’s skipped showering but did change out of his gross clothes from yesterday and has attempted to at least sort of style his hair. 

“You’re up early,” his dad says when Sam walks into the kitchen, rummaging around in the cupboard through their twelve varieties of boring old people cereal before finally settling on one of those weird oatmeal breakfast bars that Lindsay likes. 

“Yeah, Pete’s surgery was scheduled for eight so I want to be there before he wakes up,” Sam says. 

“Alright,” his dad says. “Can you please text if you think you’re going to be out late again? I know you’re responsible but we didn’t appreciate you coming banging around when you came home so late last night.” 

“Sorry,” Sam says around a mouthful of oatmeal. He’d texted his dad about going to the hotel after he’d bumped into Colin, not wanting him to hear about it secondhand. 

He didn’t think Colin was going to rat on him or anything, but he had a bad habit of spinning totally normal stuff in such a way that always sounded a little bit worse than it really was. Like the time Colin had brought up Sam going to San Diego for Gabi’s birthday, but instead of calling it her birthday party, he’d asked how his first college rager had gone. In front of their mom. Sam hadn’t wanted to find out the way he’d spin Sam going to hang out in his friend’s hotel room. 

His dad insists on hugging him on his way out the door. Which isn’t weird in itself, his dad is big on the positive impact of physical affection, but Sam knows his insistence has a lot less to do with that and a lot more to do with Peter. 

Sam wonders why he seems to have so much more faith in modern medicine than everyone else around him.

He texts Mrs. Maldonado right after he parks at the hospital, and he gets her reply that Peter is out of surgery but still in the recovery room but that he’s welcome to come upstairs and wait in his new room. 

Sam’s too busy crafting a reply, hitting the polite and friendly niche when texting a middle-aged lady who tends to use a lot of ominous ellipses takes more effort than one might expect, so he doesn’t see Jenna at first when he walks into the lobby. 

“Hello? Earth to Sam?” Jenna says, turning on her heel and throwing her hands up incredulously. 

“Oh, fuck, hi,” Sam says. “Sorry, I was totally in my head.” 

Jenna rolls her eyes but comes over and hugs him anyways. Sam had figured that the St. B’s crew would make their way over at some point today, but he’s surprised to see them so early. Especially Jenna, who once replied to Peter asking if they could meet first thing in the morning that she could be ready for noon. 

“Peter’s still like, unconscious, but if you wanted to grab breakfast or something I can text you when he wakes up,” Sam suggests. He knows Peter loves them all and will probably be excited to see them, but he has to figure that even personable Peter wouldn't love the idea of his documentary subjects watching him while he’s unconscious. 

“So actually,” Jenna says, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “We’re actually heading to the airport.” 

“Oh,” Sam says, blinking. “I hadn’t realized you guys were flying out so early.” 

“Yeah, no, we were actually planning to stay for, well, at least for today. But I woke up this morning and I figured like, if my theoretical girlfriend was hypothetically in the hospital I probably wouldn’t want to be juggling all these other people on top of it. So we’re gonna go get breakfast with Dylan and Ivy Claire and then we’re heading home.” 

“Oh, that’s— ” Sam starts 

“Don’t say we didn’t have to or you didn’t mind us being here,” Jenna says. “Because you clearly did and that’s honestly fine, we’re not offended. Putting Kevin and Dylan in the same room is like putting mentos in coke. Like it’s fun, but it’s not something you wanna do in polite company.” 

“It’s still nice.” 

Jenna rolls her eyes. “I’m not very nice and you know it.” 

“Shut up,” Sam says, and hugs her again, Jenna giving him an almost sarcastic pat on the back before actually hugging him back properly. 

“Oh, here, we got this for Peter.” Jenna hands him a sealed envelope.. “Maybe we can try and visit another time when he’s not in the hospital. Or maybe I can fly you guys out to Bellevue?” 

“Yeah totally,” Sam says. “Let's do fun stuff when no one has organs on the verge of exploding.” 

Jenna scoffs, hoisting her almost comically large designer bag higher on her shoulder. “Yeah, I’ll have my people call your people.” Sam waves her off, not sure if she’s kidding or if she actually has people, and knowing Jenna both are entirely plausible. 

Sam finds Mrs. Maldonado sitting in Peter’s room drinking coffee from the travel mug Peter got her for mother’s day last year (Sam knows because he was there when Peter spent a full forty five minutes debating between two different brands) and reading some home style magazine. She makes polite small talk with him for a few minutes — how their trip to Los Gatos went, how he’s liking his job at Miniwaka, is he excited to start at Berkeley — and then goes back to her magazine. He loves that about Mrs. Maldonado, she’s always been super nice to him, but she also has a great sense of when a conversation is over and is always the exact right amount of Parentally Invested in whatever him and Peter are getting up to. 

Peter didn’t get that same conversation expiration sense. Maybe it skips a generation, like red hair. 

He immediately feels guilty for thinking that though as an orderly wheels Peter’s bed back into the room, a nurse following her, Peter still unconscious as he’s hooked back up to his IV. 

Mrs. Maldonado makes this soft, almost sad noise, reaching out for Peter’s hand as soon as the room is clear and pushing his hair up off his forehead. Normally Sam thinks Peter looks serious even when he’s asleep, but somehow under the anesthetic he looks so soft and small. Peter shifts in his artificial sleep, moving his head across the pillow. 

“He was such a beautiful baby,” Mrs. Maldonado says unprompted, letting go of Peter’s hand and sitting back a little. “I remember when the nurse put him in my arms— and it’s true that every mother thinks her baby is beautiful, but he really was just a little doll. Those eyelashes. And those big eyes, always taking everything in. He just won everyone over. Even my mother, who wasn’t exactly pleased with the whole situation.” 

Sam has always found it really cool that Mrs. Maldonado just up and decided to have a baby all by herself, the Mrs. more an honorific than a reflection of her marital status. Though he knows it bugs Peter sometimes, if only because people tend to assume the worst when they ask about your dad and you have to tell them you don’t have one. 

Mrs. Maldonado reaches up to touch Peter’s cheek, Peter stirring slightly before settling back into sleep, lips parting softly, and suddenly Sam feels like he _really should not be there_. 

“I’m going to go get a coffee,” Sam says, even though Sam doesn’t drink coffee unless it’s sips out of Peter’s iced coffee, and even then he doesn’t really like it. Mrs. Maldonado doesn’t even look up as Sam leaves the room. 

He takes the stairs since he’s not really in any real rush to get his excuse

coffee. Sam opens Jenna’s contact on his phone, but it’s probably way too late to try and crash their breakfast at this point. Besides, what the hell is he going to text her, _hey Jenna I’m going to come to breakfast after all because I’m a weird coward who can’t handle Peter being injured_. 

He ends up walking over to one of the other buildings following rumours of a Starbucks and buys a stupidly overpriced iced tea and a couple of sugar cookies that look like ice cream cones purely because they’re cute. Sam’s objectively getting a lot better at this wasting time in hospitals thing, playing three quarters of a game of Words with Friends with Lindsay before he heads back up to the room. 

Peter is mostly awake, chatting with his mom when Sam walks back in, but he’s still not wearing his glasses, and he’s ever so slightly disengaged, hands quiet in his lap instead of waving through the air to illustrate his point.

“Hey,” Peter says softly, when Sam sits back down. 

“Hey,” Sam says. “How’re you feeling.” 

Peter squints thoughtfully for a moment, or maybe because he can’t really

see. “Hurts,” Peter settles on finally.

“Well I’m sure it feels at least a bit better than before, right?” Sam tries. 

“No, it’s way worse,” Peter says completely seriously and Sam would honestly kiss him if Peter’s mom wasn’t sitting literally two feet away from him, reading something on her phone. Sam feels his heart expand so big in his chest it almost hurts, there’s something kind of irresistibly adorable about Peter being a little bit out of it. There was a reason he got so moony thinking about when Pete had gotten his wisdom teeth out, all soft and honest, muttering into Sam’s shoulder every thirty seconds that he loved him. 

Peter didn’t get this way any other time. Not when he was drinking, which usually lead to him going on these long winded filmic rants and trying very hard to Not Sound Drunk, and not when he was tired either. Tired Peter was mean and caffeine fueled and kind of terrifying. 

Peter falls asleep again pretty soon after that and Mrs. Maldonado has to leave for a client meeting. A nurse comes in to wake Peter up and check his vitals and Peter’s much more himself this time. Clearly feeling himself enough to bug Sam three times about emailing Netflix.

“You literally were just under the knife, I’m pretty sure getting stressed about work isn’t on your list of acceptable activities,” Sam points out, but still hands over his phone with a sigh when Peter makes a grabby gesture for it. 

Time stops properly existing for a while. Peter and Sam playing endless rounds of trivia crack as a team, Peter falling back asleep, Mrs. Maldonado coming back from her meeting and spending twenty minutes in the hall with a nurse, Peter being stupidly excited over getting to eat food again even if it’s shitty hospital food. 

It all kind of blurs together except for the stern talking-to Sam gets given by a nurse about what exactly ‘strenuous physical activities’ includes right in front of Mrs. Maldonado, which Sam doesn’t think he’ll forget as long as he lives. 

Luckily for him, Peter’s grandmother shows up pretty soon after that, and Sam gets to make a quick escape into the hall. 

_Hey! Back in Washington!_ Chloe texts, and Sam snorts as this is followed by similar texts from DeMarcus, Jenna, and Kevin, clearly not wanting to repeat their earlier texting faux pas. Kevin also attaches a video to his messages of Tanner Bassett standing at the arrivals gate with a printed out sign that says ‘The Horsehead Collective.’ Kevin laughs behind the camera as Chloe goes running towards Tanner, throwing her arms around her boyfriend’s neck with a delighted shriek.

 _Ahhhh young love_ , Kevin texts, somehow managing to be more charming than passive aggressive. 

Sam’s pretty settled into one of the waiting area chairs when Mrs. Maldonado comes out of Peter’s room with her mother, escorting her to the elevator. Sam pauses the video he’d been watching and winds his headphones back around his phone while he waits for Mrs. Maldonado to make her way back over to him. 

“So the doctor just gave Peter the all-clear and then he’s good to be discharged,” Mrs. Maldonado says. “I’m sure you’re ready to get out of here, I’m sure Peter will understand if you want to head out.” 

“Um,” Sam says. “I mean, do you need a hand….unless I’d be in the way?” 

“Oh my goodness, not at all,” she says, touching Sam on the shoulder. “You’ve been an absolute _gift_ these last few days, I just didn’t know if you needed a break.” 

“I can stay,” Sam says, even though before this he had been debating going home, but if they’re discharging Peter he can stick around for a little bit longer. 

Mrs. Maldonado says she’s going to wait in the hallway for the orderly who’s bringing Peter up a wheelchair, but Sam is pretty sure she’s only doing that so Sam and Peter can have a moment alone, Peter fiddling with settings on his bed when Sam walks back in. 

“You having fun there, babe?” 

“No,” Peter says. “I can’t find a position that doesn’t make my shoulder hurt.” 

“Your shoulder?” Sam asks, wrinkling his nose. “What’s wrong with your shoulder?” 

“It’s from the gas they use during surgery,” Peter says. “I don’t know.”

Peter plays with the settings on his bed for a long few moments before finally bringing the bed up all the way. 

“I’m supposed to get dressed,” Peter says, and then after a long second when Sam doesn’t say anything. “I need you to help me.” 

“Oh, right, duh,” Sam says, as Peter pulls his legs over the side of the bed, wincing slightly. Sam holds his hands out for Peter to pull himself up. Peter’s IV has already been removed so they don’t have to deal with the little rolling tower thing like they’d had to every other time Peter had gotten up to go to the bathroom, but it’s still slow going. 

Sam sets Peter’s clothes on the counter, handing him his boxer briefs so he doesn’t have to be totally buck naked when he takes his gown off. Not that Sam of all fucking people would balk at seeing his dick, but there’s something super weird about having to be totally naked in such a clinic environment. 

Peter struggles for a bit, reaching out without warning and putting all of his weight on Sam’s shoulder for a second. 

“Ow,” Sam says, and Peter winces sympathetically. 

“Sorry.” 

“It’s okay, just warn a guy next time. Okay, pants or shirt?” 

“Pants I think,” Peter says. “Can you…?” he asks turning so Sam can undo the ties on his hospital gown. Even though the whole ordeal has such an underlying clinic feeling Sam can’t help but admire the smooth tan skin of Peter’s back. There’s a little mole on Peter’s left shoulder blade that Sam is obsessed with, and he leans over to kiss it as Peter pulls the rest of the gown off. 

“Tickles,” Peter muses as he turns around and gestures for his sweatpants, but Sam’s brain gets stuck like a CD skipping as his eyes zero in on the two incisions on Peter’s abdomen, one on his side and one right above his belly button. They’re both covered in gauze spotted with dried blood, and it hits Sam like a brick wall for the first time how fucking serious Peter having appendicitis was. That they cut into him just a few hours ago and took out a literal ticking time bomb that for most of human history was a fairly probable death sentence. And that the evidence of it will be stitched into Peter’s skin for the rest of their lives. 

“Sam?” Peter says. “Hey, hey.” 

Sam’s vision blurs with tears and he tries to get out that he’s okay, that everything’s fine, but the only thing that comes out is a wobbly sob. Sam has never been one of those guys who is ashamed about crying, blame it on having a dad with a degree in child psychology. But normally when he cries he can feel it welling up and cresting like a wave. There’s a breaking point to it. At least normally. 

But now Sam is just sobbing involuntarily, blinking over and over again as tears leak down the sides of his face. The last time he can remember crying like this, shocked and terrified, was when he was six or seven and his whole family had gone on a week-long trip to Disneyland. Sam had been going through a pretty hardcore Tamagotchi phase, a hand-me-down obsession from Lindsay, wearing three on a Buzz Lightyear lanyard around his neck. Sam doesn’t totally remember the details anymore, doesn’t remember if he’d forgotten them in the hotel room, or maybe his mom had made him leave them behind. Either way Sam had woken up on the last day of their trip to find that one of his beloved Tamagotchis had died. 

He’d spent the rest of the day inconsolable, unable to stop himself crying no matter how much he tried. There’s a whole series of photos of him squished between Lindsay and Colin, eyes red and face puffy. They still think the whole thing was hilarious, showing the photos to their friends and bringing up the entire ordeal all the time. 

And Sam could usually at least kind of laugh along about it, but he’d forgotten with time that wave of helplessness, the realization that things could die and get hurt and it was real and it was forever. 

Peter, still stiff from _surgery_ , fuck, grabs Sam by the shoulders and eases him backwards until his knees bump against the seat thing right above the shower head in the bathroom, Sam sinking down onto it. 

“Sammy,” Peter says, “Sam,” letting Sam press his face into his chest, Peter playing with the hair at the back of his head, pushing it up and then smoothing it down over and over again while Sam tries to remember how to breathe. 

“There you go,” Peter says when Sam finally manages to get his breath mostly even. 

“Sorry,” Sam mutters, trying not to sound too pathetic but that’s a tall order when your face is more or less eye level with your boyfriends nipples. 

Peter doesn’t say anything for a long few moments, still petting Sam’s hair, before finally he says, “I think you were right.” 

“About what?” Sam asks, wiping at the underside of his jaw. 

“I think the first cut with Kevin is better,” Peter says, entirely serious, like he isn’t standing in a hospital bathroom in only his boxers with three incisions on his abdomen from the medical emergency he’s been having. 

“Oh my god, oh my fucking god,” Sam says, and starts laughing despite himself, practically coughing as his laughter builds, Peter taking a step back and looking at him unamusedly. 

“Hey, no, don’t pout,” Sam says wiping at his eyes again for an entirely new reason, he knows his face is still kind of damp and gross but Peter doesn’t fight Sam kissing him a bunch on the face, even if his arms are still tightly folded. 

“I’m so glad you don’t live in Newsie-times.” _I’m so glad you’re alive, I’m so glad you’re mine_. 

“Me too,” Peter says.

“Uhh, did they shave your happy trail?” 

“What?” 

“You’re all smooth,” Sam says, very gently petting Peter’s stomach above his waist band. 

“Oh yeah, I guess they did.” 

“I hate that.” 

“It’ll grow back.” 

“Mhmmm.” 

“I’m fucking freezing, can we maybe….?” 

“Yes, clothes, right,” Sam says grabbing Peter’s sweatpants again. “It feels like, kind of wrong to be helping you put your clothes _on_ , it’s not really my area of expertise.” 

Expertise or not, they do manage to get Peter fully clothed, and it takes long enough that Sam’s face is a lot less red and puffy so he has some plausible deniability for the crying. Mrs. Maldonado does a big circle check of the room to make sure they’re not forgetting anything before an orderly wheels Peter out. 

“I’ll just go bring my car around,” Mrs. Maldonado says reaching into her purse for her keys. 

“Oh actually,” Sam says, “would it be okay if I drive Peter home? I have a stop I promised we could make.” 

Twenty minutes later Peter lets out a little pleased laugh when Sam signals and pulls into the Taco Bell parking lot and orders two Baja Blasts, a CrunchWrap Supreme, and a Cheesy Gordita Crunch. He doesn’t really expect Peter to be able to eat all of it but he makes a pretty valiant attempt, and Sam’s more than happy to finish his CrunchWrap while Peter reclines his seat back and groans. 

“You can’t be sick or your mom will kill me,” Sam says. 

“I’m not gonna be sick,” Peter says, annoyed at the implication, as if he is not in a Vaguely-Mexican food coma literally as they speak.

“That’s the spirit!” Sam grins, taking another sip of his Baja Blast, but Peter’s already distracted, looking at something on his phone. “Pete, I swear to god if you’re emailing Netflix again…” 

“I’m on instragram, dude, chill,” Peter says. “Kevin posted a bunch of trip pics.” 

“Oooh lemme see,” Sam unclips his seatbelt so he can get a better look. Peter scrolls through a couple of photos that must have been taken last night at the hotel while he was asleep, and then a few of the St. B’s kids all squished up together in a restaurant booth. Sam startles a laugh at the last picture in the set, Dylan wearing Kevin’s flatcap clearly having a ball while Kevin looks much less amused in one of Dylan’s snapbacks. 

“You honestly deserve a medal or something for dealing with those two in a room together,” Peter says. “I mean, I love both of them, but they’re— ” 

“A lot, yeah,” Sam agrees. “I mean honestly I think Dylan loved Kevin. Kevin loving Dylan, ehhhh, not so much.” 

“I’d always figured that we wouldn’t have to deal with them meeting until— ” Peter starts, and then abruptly cuts himself off. 

“Until what?” 

“Nothing.” 

“ _Pete_ ,” Sam prompts, waiting for a long minute as Peter pulls his seat back up into a proper sitting position. 

“Well, you know, just like, theoretically I thought maybe they’d meet at our wedding.” 

_Oh_. Sam’s entire stomach bunches up like a string of Christmas lights (which is kinda weird cause he doesn’t even really celebrate Christmas). It’s not like he’s never considered the possibility that they might manage to pull off this whole being in love thing long-term. Maybe even involving like some rings and also the government. But it’s the first time either of them have said anything about it out loud. Much less Peter implying that he’s actually put some sort of thought into the whole thing. 

Sam can see the thought process already whirling behind Peter’s eyes, the urge to start talking a mile a minute about how he was just talking _hypothetically_ , chipping away at his own meaning to make it less messy and honest. 

But Sam _wants_ that. Wants every messy and honest thought in Peter’s head, so he takes Peter’s hand and squeezes it. 

“You’re totally right, they’re gonna be nightmares in formalwear. I guess we’ll just have to be really careful with our seating arrangements then,” Sam says, raising his eyebrows and grinning at Peter conspiratorially. 

“Yeah,” Peter says, “I guess we will.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to the three loves of my life; Rachel evol_love for being my Sam when I had appendicitis; Meg youshallnotfinditso for being the greatest beta in the world and fellow Pat Micklewaite stan; and Baja Blast for being so fucking delicious.


End file.
